Sometimes a band gets so big that they somehow outshine themselves. They reach a point in their career where it does not matter if they release a new album or not; fans just want to see them tour. No one gave a damn that Led Zeppelin had not released a new album since the 1970’s; everyone just wanted to see them play again at the O2 Arena in 2007. When The Who played the Super Bowl halftime show in 2010 they had only released one new album in 28 years, and no one cared. And no one cares that Guns & Roses aren’t making new music. They still packed arenas to see how much cake Axl had packed into himself.
We’re going to take a dive into a blues power trio from down south who have zero need to release any new music, since their recording career stretches back over five decades. They had amazing and groundbreaking success in the ‘70s, the ‘80s, and the ‘90s before hitting the max level. Instead of playing to win, they now play for fun. Their sexually charged lyrics and videos inspired generations of teens to both dress better and worry about their fly. And you can bet that their fuzzy, bluesy tight sound had a huge impact on our very own desert dwellers.
It’s time for us to take a walk with That Little Ol’ Band from Texas. This week’s featured artist is the legendary ZZ TOP
About Them
The Power Trio is a tested and true format for a rock band. Lots of examples come to mind: Cream. Rush. The Police. Biffy Clyro. King Buffalo. Them Crooked Vultures. (Wait a sec. Just three members? Clearly, not everything is bigger in Texas.)
There is a member joke there somewhere, but I just can’t get it to come. Hmm. Perhaps it will come if you play with it a bit.
Hey! Stop that. Get your mind out of the gutter.
ZZ Top’s original and founding member was William Frederick Gibbons. Born in Houston in 1949, the front man was originally a drummer but, after studying with Tito Puente in New York City, picked up the guitar at age 13. His dad was a musician in show business, which allowed Billy to get an insider’s view of the industry. By the late ‘60s, he had been in and founded a number of bands and had even befriended the late great James Marshall Hendrix. One of his first bands, a psychedelic/art house band called The Moving Sidewalks, toured with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. This meant that Gibbons was actually mentored by Snagglepuss himself. They also toured with The Doors, where Gibbons saw the legendary self-destructive band somehow manage to rise above conflict and make music every night. The Moving Sidewalks generated a following all of its own with a couple of hit songs, and things seemed to be headed in the right direction.
Things were going absolutely great until bassist Don Summers and keyboard player Tom Moore were drafted into the army to fight in Vietnam. Don't you just love the ‘60s?
Gibbons and drummer Dan Mitchell added a new keyboard player, Lanier Greg, and tried to make another run at it. But the chemistry was all wrong. Gibbons rechristened the band as ZZ Top (an homage to BB King), and declared that he wanted more of a straight up rock approach than the art-house kaleidoscopic sound.
Gibbons, Mitchell, and Greg (isn’t it weird when last names are also first names too?) recorded the single Salt Lick in 1969. This generated a bunch of interest and a recording contract. Decisions over the direction of the band ensued and it quickly became clear that Mitchell and Greg did not agree with Gibbons’ hard rock approach. That ended up being a poor life decision for them, but a great one for a couple of other guys.
Clearly, Gibbons needed a new rhythm section.
Fortunately, he found a package deal.
Dusty Hill and Frank Beard - also both born in 1949 - had been playing together on the Dallas-Houston-Fort Worth circuit in a number of bands, including The Warlocks, The Cellar Dwellers, and a fake cover band called The Zombies. Both the Duster and the (then ironically) beardless Beard also heard the siren call of rock and roll. Hill was classically trained and was an accomplished cello player before moving to his signature bass. Frank ‘Rube’ Beard appears to have been born with drumsticks in his hands (which I imagine might have been uncomfortable for his mom).
Beard joined the band first, along with bassist Billy Ethridge, who had played with Stevie Ray Vaughn. Ethridge balked at signing a contract and so joined Mitchell and Greg on the list of ZZ Top’s former members. Their lineup was set. Hill and Beard anchored the band in a rock-solid, tight, bluesy fashion. Gibbons meshed perfectly with this duo, and his Hendrix-inspired guitar work was on another level. Hill provided backing vocals, and Gibbons’ low throaty growl was an impressive counterpoint to his soaring fretwork. The talent was all there; now they just needed to record some music.
But success was not instantaneous, not by a long shot.
Their first album - appropriately called ZZ Top’s First Album - gives insight into who the band were to become. In this 1971 release, you can hear their raw sound. The record peaked at 201 on the charts, and had only one single - (Somebody Else Been) Shaking Your Tree. It did give them material to go out and tour. The boys gelled on that tour and went back into the studio with renewed energy, and emerged with 1972’s Rio Grande Mud. The disc was a step forward in refining their sound. The album almost cracked the top 100, and the only single - Francine - went all the way to number 69.
Nice.
But the band knew that their third album, Tres Hombres, was something special. It is the epitome of Southern Rock: bluesy, fast paced, sexy, and irreverent, it is just over half an hour of pure magic. And while the album went gold and peaked at number 8 on the charts and is worth your time, it was one particular single that rocketed them to stardom. You know it and you love it, and a-how-how-how-how: La Grange. It is still in heavy rotation on classic rock stations today. And why not? The song is an absolute banger of boogie woogie blues, written about a visit to a whorehouse. What’s not to love?
La Grange propelled them to popularity. Tours sold out. Venues got bigger and bigger. 1975’s follow up album, Fandango!, was half live album (with some covers) and half new material - like an EP with bonus tracks. They covered the Elvis Presley classic Jailhouse Rock, Willie Dixon’s Mellow Down Easy, and John Lee Hooker’s Long Distance Boogie. The boys had rock and blues chops, and had 5 years of touring experience. These were bold statements that cemented their musicality as well as honoring their roots. But side two of the disc had another track that you’ve come to love. You ain’t asking for much: You’re just lookin’ for some Tush. Tush was the perfect sexually charged follow up to ensure that they were not one-hit wonders. It was written in a ten-minute spasm of creativity at a sound check, and has gone on to be one of their most popular songs.
While Tush topped the charts, ZZ Top went back into the studio to record their full length follow up, 1976’s Tejas. The name of the album means ‘friends’ in the Indigenous Caddo language, and was the basis for the name of the state. You know what that means? It means that the name of the state is ‘Friends’. Just like the ‘90s sitcom. Don’t mess with Friends. Anyways, this was an album of experimentation for the band, and unlike its predecessor it came out half baked at best. Billy Gibbons has called it a transition album. What actually happened is the band transitioned into a hiatus from touring and recording, taking some significant time off. They had recorded five albums in six years and spent virtually all their time on the road. The latest effort was just not up to their standards and was a step back. It also completed their recording contract.
What was the solution to this burn out?
Facial hair of course.
The boys took a few years off before landing another recording contract, this time with Warner. Over those months, both Gibbons and Hill grew what would become their signature long ‘Texas Goatee’ beards. Frank Beard did not grow a beard (though he did finally succumb to peer pressure from his bandmates in 2013, and his is much more neatly trimmed). So while they were resting/relaxing/getting their groove back/aligning their chakras or whatever, they also started to reinvent their signature sound as the world moved towards a decade of legendary excess.
The first step on this reinvention journey was 1979’s Degüello. The title literally means ‘decapitation’ but idiomatically refers to a fight to the death. Clearly, the band decided to tackle their transition head on. The album was not as successful as Tres Hombres or Fandango!, but it was not the flop that Tejas was. It did spawn a couple of singles - I Thank You (which was a cover) and the signature hit Cheap Sunglasses. Both are staples at ZZ Top concerts to this day. Degüello was quickly followed up in 1981 by the album El Loco. This was really the first time ZZ Top incorporated a synthesizer into their sound. As you know, the synth was THE new wave sound of the 1980s. Gods help us, keytars were once popular. But Gibbons, Hill, and Beard did not abandon their edge. The single Pearl Necklace was an immensely popular innuendo laced tune from this album. And no, I will not explain what a pearl necklace is to you.
Ask your mom.
Over the course of their first seven albums, ZZ Top had steadily grown in popularity and become a truly extraordinary live band. More than a decade of touring together meant that they had not just cut their teeth. They had found the Tooth Fairy, beaten her senseless, and added fangs to their jaws. They were ready to tackle whatever came their way.
Their huge breakthrough coincided with the birth of music videos and MTV. 1983’s Eliminator was an absolute monster of an album. ZZ Top were everywhere. They completely embraced the Music Video as a medium and became pioneers in this new genre. They branded their band with a 1933 fire-engine red Ford Coupe, which was on the cover of the album. They even had a signature hand gesture that they used as the car went by. The car belonged to Billy Gibbons and embodied his hot rod obsessions. It was featured in the videos for Gimme All Your Lovin’, Sharp Dressed Man, and Legs. Other singles from the album included Got me Under Pressure and TV Dinners. Eliminator is still the band’s most successful album. They were at the absolute height of their popularity with a massive audience. No doubt the 10-year-old Joshua Michael Homme watched those videos on a small screen in the California desert, little knowing that he would one day collaborate with Gibbons.
Seeking to capitalize on the popularity, the band went back into the studio and released Afterburner in 1985. It featured the signature hot rod on the cover and spawned two more singles - Sleeping Bag and Velcro Fly. Afterburner was not an innovative album by any stretch of the imagination. It simply built on the success of Eliminator and replicated the sound. If you blended the two albums together it would be very difficult for a novice fan to guess which song came from which disc. But hell, when you release the most popular album of your career and are earning millions of dollars for that sound, it is not time to mess with success. Or with Texas. Or with Friends (though Ross was a pain in the ass, IMHO).
That desire to not screw up a good thing was also evident in their next release, the retrospective re-release Six Pack. This was a great way to earn some bucks with a simple repackaging of existing tracks - I’m looking at you, K-Tel… - and introducing them to another generation of fans. This was not a bad thing at all - you gotta get that green whenever you can, because fame can be fleeting.
ZZ Top closed out the decade by going Back to the Future. Literally. They appeared in the third installment of the Michael J. Fox trilogy as the olde-timey house band (complete with rotating guitars) in the saloon scene. The single and signature song from the movie, Doubleback, appeared on their 1990 release Recycler. The album spawned two more singles: My Head’s in Mississippi and Concrete and Steel. Recycler was not as successful as its predecessors, but it did effectively max level the band. In the 1970’s they were a scuffling bar band that hit it big. In the 1980’s they were one of the most popular bands of the MTV generation. And in the 1990’s they achieved superstardom. They had hit the level where it truly no longer mattered if they ever released new material again. They could simply tour on their back catalogue alone and sell out stadiums.
It is clear that the band realized this as well. In the thirty years since Recycler came out, they have released five albums of new material: Antenna in 1994, Rhythmeen in 1996, XXX in 1999, Mescalero in 2003 and the critically acclaimed and Rick Rubin produced La Futura in 2012. This was equivalent to their output in their first six years.
In contrast, they have released no less than eight greatest hits albums, cover albums and live albums in the same time span. Greatest Hits came out in 1992. One Foot in the Blues was released in 1994. The massive compilation Chrome, Smoke & BBQ came out in 2003, and is a fantastic place to start if you are a new fan. Rancho Texicano was released in 2004, Live from Texas came out in 2008, and Double Down Live hit shelves in 2009. Live at Montreaux came out in 2013 and Tonite at Midnight: Live Greatest Hits from Around the World was released in 2016.
As recently as 2019, there were rumors that a new album was in the works for our Septuagenarian heroes. Lord knows the boys from Texas have nothing left to prove to anyone.
It was then that tragedy struck. Dusty Hill had to leave the band during a tour in 2021. The reason given was a hip injury. His guitar tech, Elwood Francis, filled in. Shockingly, Hill died at home at the age of 72 just five days after leaving the tour.
Fans were shocked and mourned the stalwart bassist. Per his wishes - and it seems he knew something wasn’t quite right - ZZ Top did not break up. Francis replaced Hill on bass, and the band soldiered on. In 2022, they released Raw, a soundtrack for a 2019 documentary about them. This was Hill’s final release.
You can still catch them on tour. They are going to be out there this summer, touring with Lynyrd Skynyrd, for something they are calling ‘The Sharp Dressed Simple Man’ Tour.
Go buy some tickets. Don’t miss your chance to see a truly iconic band before they are gone.
Links to QOTSA
The Reverend Billy F. Gibbons was a big part of the Lullabies to Paralyze album by our Desert Dwellers. He played guitar and provided backing vocals on Burn the Witch. He was co-lead vocalist and lead guitar on the QotSA cover of Precious and Grace, which he originally released as a ZZ Top tune on the Tres Hombres album. He also provided the guitar stylings for Like a Drug.
But the connections don't stop there. Billy sang the lead vocal track on the recent Desert Sessions tune Move Together, and he played guitar on Noses in Roses, Forever.
What may be most important to QotSA fans is that Gibbons was the first person, almost two years ago, who hinted that Queens were working on a new album.
And now we know he was right. Never doubt a Reverend.
Their Music
Salt Lick
(Somebody Else Been) Shaking your Tree
Francine
La Grange -- Live on Howard Stern
Jailhouse Rock
Tush -- a fan made video. It is not subtle.
Cheap Sunglasses
Pearl Necklace -- Live
Gimme All Your Lovin’
Sharp Dressed Man
Legs -- the ultimate makeover video
Got Me Under Pressure -- Live at Montreaux
Sleeping Bag -- Let’s go out to Egypt and check out some heads...
Velcro Fly -- also somehow in Egypt
My Head’s In Mississippi
Concrete and Steel -- vintage video
Doubleback
I Gotsta Get Paid -- from La Futura
Show Them Some Love
/zztop
Previous Posts
Tool
Alice in Chains
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Rage Against The Machine
Soundgarden
Run the Jewels
Royal Blood
Arctic Monkeys
Ty Segall
Eagles of Death Metal
Them Crooked Vultures
Led Zeppelin
Greta Van Fleet
Ten Commandos
Screaming Trees
Sound City Players
Iggy Pop
Mastodon
The Strokes
Radiohead
All Them Witches

TL;DR — Should I Pull?

New Players

Hoooooooo buddy.
Lots to unpack, here.
Firstly, if you do not have UDX Silver, GLEX Silver, Shuzer, or Liam, pull the Romancing Festival reprint for Liam or GLEX Silver. 33k jewels for Liam/Silver with Thyme, Shuzer, Rag Robin, Christmas Empress, and other good styles in the mix is hands down the best deal on offer.
For most new players I'm going to recommend Matriarch's banner. Matriarch and Roc are a very solid support core, and Matriarch gets way better with a couple of inherits that are avaialble in the offbanner pool, which you can select one style from with the ticket you got from logging in today.
If, however, you have Thyme and Overdrive Emelia and you don't have the Matriarch style with Paean of Peace, then I recommend pulling on the Lynn Woods banner for Liz. Liz's Aqua Bash+ can be a functional replacement for Paean of Peace which doesn't require chasing a character who isn't on Rate Up, and the rest of her kit is enabled by Emelia and Thyme is a big way. Polka has similar synergy with them and also brings a damn useful heal to the table, and whilst Jo isn't the same kind of "stupid powerful alongside her enablers" good, she's still a very good style that can deal a lot of damage and avoid nearly as much. Jo is also pretty danged good for a new player to pick up, with a medium Morale Down she can sustain on enemies to help reduce incoming damage by a good chunk. Overall, very solid banner, just not as "ready to go out of box" as the other one.
Depending on what else we see this month, it's possible that going back to the other banner once we see what else is going to be offered may be the best move for newbies. Matriarch + Roc + Thyme + Liz + [ShuzeLiam/Silver] would be a ridiculously good core team for someone with less than 6 months play time. 🤩 But I won't go so far as to say that until we get a better sense of what's on deck. For now, focus on Matriarch if you don't have the big Overdrive enablers; focus on Liz if you do.

Veterans

OK. So on the one hand, we have a banner with a Liz style that solos Remembrance battles. And on the other hand we have a banner with a Matriarch style. Now you may thi- you're already pulling Matriarch. OK, then.
Kidding aside, I know a bunch of people reading this really are about to pull the first banner here simply because it has Matriarch and for no other reason, regardless of whether she's any good or not. And... actually, that's not a bad plan, here. Matriarch is definitely a solid support style, whether you have the Paean of Peace inherit for her or not. Roc is way better if you have certain inherits, but even if you only have her Tower S style, her offbanner A style, and her Platinum pool SS style, she's still a pretty good style with a few good options.
Liz and Polka are also pretty danged good, though. Liz in particular has amazing synergy with Thyme and Overdrive Emelia in content with direct hits to counter. She dispenses WIL buffs to the team and counters with a defense boost for the team on any turn where she can Overdrive... which can actually be most turns if you have Emelia backing her up. Polka can counter with an attack that grants the party an attack boost, so if you bring the both of them, you can actually get a lot of buffs going on overdrive turns against enemies that throw direct AoE attacks.
All of which is a lot of words to say that I can definitely recommend a pull on Matriarch's banner, and if you are eyeing Liz and Polka's banner and have the jewels to spare, I can also recommend some pulls there, but if you need to choose between them, I would definitely recommend Mama's first.

Planes Balloons, Trains, and Automobeels — Romancing Festival Limited Banner

Matriarch

Unit Summary

Indefatigable support unit.

Unit Analysis

Paean of Tranquility is 3 BP for a tiny heal to the party plus a medium defense boost. It's a defense boost, not a Guard Up, so it stacks with any other kind of defense increases you have. It's a single-turn defense boost, but it's 25% on top of a party-wide heal, so it's totally worth spamming if you don't have other, better things for Matriarch to do.
Saga Balloon Sanctuary is a [Fast] B-rank sun AoE for 8 BP. Its damage is not amazing, but it grants a large Attack Boost to the whole party for 3 turns. Since it's an Attack Boost, not a Morale Up, it stacks, so she can actually wind up increasing party damage output by quite a bit with her +2 BP/turn fueling an 8 BP cost skill.
Her third attack is an SSSS attack for 10 BP, which is kind of ridiculous for a character who can spam that every-other-turn. The problem is that Matriarch is such a strong support character that you're arguably not "winning" that exchange by spending her BP on damage instead of support stuff, especially if you also have a high-octane damage dealer like Silver or Liam dwarfing Matriarch's damage.
For a support character she's also tanky... as long as she's able to resist every hit she takes. Every resisted attack she takes 40% less damage from and has a 37% chance to avoid it in the first place. Every non-resisted attack... she takes full damage. So against enemies that only deal one or two types of damage, she's quite resilient. Against enemies that will fling 5+ damage types at you, you might find yourself taking more damage than you expected.

Inherits

Paean of Peace. Just... just Paean of Peace. DEX/WIL/LOV/CHA buff for the whole party. 5 BP a pop. This Mama can spam it forever with no BP support. The WIL keeps your day from being ruined by status effects, the DEX helps Liam's damage, and the LOV/CHA buffs help party healers do their job better. Sure, it occupies all of her time, but it's doing a loooot of work, so it's worth it.
Available from the [Leading the People] style, now in the offbanner pool and available to be collected from the 3rd Anniversary Romancing Festival Exclusive SS Style Exchange with the ticket you received upon login. If you're pulling for this Matriarch style, I strongly recommend you use that ticket to pick up [Leading the People] as well for this inherit.

Rocbouquet

Unit Summary

Reasonable support character who becomes a great support character with inherits.

Unit Analysis

Tons of BP recovery potential. When she hits with an attack that hits a weakness, she gets +1 BP. When she hits with a Shadow attack, she gains +2 BP. So if she hits with a Shadow attack that lands a weakness, get gets 3 BP back.
The attack you're probably be going to do that with is -checks notes- Lightning of Darkness.
That can't be... really, Akatsuki? Really?
Sorry. So, yeah, Lightning of Darkness is 8 BP for S-rank Shadow/Lightning damage. That's expensive for an S-rank attack (although it's at the high end of S-rank, so you can think of it as a weak SS attack), but it hits two weaknesses, it debuffs all of the enemy's stats, and it inflicts an Attack Down on the enemy. So it's expensive because it's trying to cram a lot of stuff into one attack. The debuff is not going to be terribly useful because so many bosses will Defy Weakness at the first hint of stat debuffs, but on the rare occasion where that's not the case it can definitely be useful to debuff a bunch of stats at once. The attack down is small and only for 1 turn, so it's not amazing, but it's also noteworthy that it's not a Morale Down, so it will stack with Morale Down users.
Goby Spark is another overcosted attack, this time an AoE. Spark will clear all INT buffs on the targets in addition to debuffing their INT. That's actually a pretty big deal because it means she is really good at shutting down enemies that like to buff their INT, and enemies that love to buff their INT are some of the most problematic bosses. There's an inherit that's going to be better for this purpose in a lot of boss battles, but we're not quite to inherits, yet.
Like Matriarch, she's tanky against attacks that she resists. (She actually has the same ability - reduce resisted attacks and high chance to evade them.) Unlike Matriarch, she can stack more tankiness on top of that if you're flinging Lightning damage at the enemy, topping out at 40% mitigation if you hit with a lightning attack every single turn, healing herself with each of those as well. Oh, and if she's hitting a weakness, she'll tack a second tiny self-heal on as well. So if you're spamming Lightning of Darkness (-sigh-) and hitting a weakness with every attack, not only do you get the Attack Down effect and maybe some stat debuffs, but you're also ramping up to 64% mitigation (and 50% damage boosts) and double self-healing herself every turn.
And if you can spare the bonus BP, the bonus damage, and the bonus mitigation, she also has one of the most unique heals in the game. It's a 0 BP spell so it's BP positive on the turns she uses it despite forfeiting both of her BP ability procs that turn, but what's notable about it is that it grants the target a small Defense Up. Small Defense Up is only 5%, but it sticks for the rest of the battle, meaning Roc can dump her LP into Liam while he's dumping his LP to give him an extra 20% damage mitigation. And then she'll proceed to spam an Attack Down/stat debuff attack. Not bad, Roc. Not bad.

Inherits

-deep breath- OK, cannons. You can do this.
This is Rocbouquet's 9th style. Most of those styles have at least one relevant inherit. Many of them have multiple spells worth looking at.
So let's start with GLEX Roc, currently in the offbanner pool. Psycho Boom is a shadow attack that debuffs the enemy's INT and WIL which chases with Euthanize, which is another shadow attack that debuffs INT. It's a lot of INT debuffing in a single turn, and if it happens to hit a weakness, it refunds 6 of its 12 BP cost. The majority of bosses in modern content will definitely Defy Weakness the next turn, but if you happen to find a boss that doesn't Defy, it ruins INT-based attacks.
After that we have Blooming Fireworks, which amplifies into an A-rank shadow/heat AoE for 10 BP which refunds BP to the party. It's random whether it refunds 1 BP or 2, so it's technically an unreliable BP battery, but since it always grants at least 1, it's still functionally a pretty good BP support spell. Roc gaining +2 BP guaranteed when she casts it (shadow damage) and maybe getting another +1 if it hits a weakness makes her one of the best BP battery units in the game.
Finally from GLEX Roc (yes, all three of the spells on that style are worth considering for inherits) you have Lightning Crash. Lightning Crash isn't really anything special — it's just a 0 BP Shadow/Lightning spell that can stun its target. But it's worth inheriting because it lets Roc sustain her Lightning attack buffs while she's spamming her main S2 attack down/debuff attack.
Jumping around to other styles we have Marine Ball from her previous limited style, which is a 5 BP AoE Morale Down attack. It's pure cold damage so it doesn't trigger either of her damage type bonuses, but it's a 3-turn Morale Down that she can potentially stack with her S2's Attack Down if you need more damage debuffing from her.
Dark Pulse from her previous Prefecture style is a 3 BP shadow/lightning AoE attack. Its damage is not considered good for that BP cost anymore, but she can spam it forever and be BP positive like with Lightning Crash but hitting an AoE instead of just a single target, in the event that you need that.
Enraged Squid from that style also happens to be the highest potential damage spell she has. It's 12 BP and it hits randomly between 3 and 5 times, so it's not a reliable nuke, but if you want to use her for damage, that's the spell to go with.
Soul Freeze from her A style (in the offbanner pool; you almost certainly have it if you've pulled on more than 3 limited banners in the last 6 months) amplifies into an A-rank shadow AoE for 9 BP, which is a pretty good cost for the damage it deals. On farms, she can use this on both turns 1 and 2 as long as she hits a weakness with it on turn 1, which winds up being a really good amount of AoE over two turns. It also has a chance to paralyze, although if you want paralyze and you don't need the AoE, Shadow Chains from that style would be better, with both a much cheaper cost (2 BP) and a higher innate chance to paralyze.
Also from A Roc (yeah, another style where all three spells matter) you have Drain Life. Drain Life amplifies into a 4 BP B-rank shadow attack that comes attached with a Small self-heal. The self-heal sizing in this game is not helpfully categorized, and Small self-heal tends to equate to about 900-1200 heals, depending on formation and buffs, making it a spammable attack that is very good at keeping her HP topped up.
Moving on to her SaGa the Stage style, we have Tri-Flower, a C-rank shadow AoE for 6 BP. Tri Flower's damage is utterly unimpressive, but it also buffs the party's WIL, and this style can cast it a whooooole lot with its +2 BP on shadow hit, which is a very compelling option to have for a unit that can dispense Defense Ups.
Her Platinum SS style has Water of Life, which is not going to compare favorably to Graceful Cup in most situations, but it can remove stat debuffs, and in some situations that may be more important than the Defense Up.
Also from the Platinum style is Energy Storm. Energy Storm amps into an 8 BP B-rank shadow AoE. Soul Freeze+ is better damage for only slightly more BP, so on 2-round AoE farms, you would want to use Soul Freeze. On 3-round farms, however, Roc can use Energy Storm on all three rounds as long as she hits a weakness on turn 1 and turn 2. B-rank damage is not always going to clear a round on its own, but being able to cast it back-to-back-to-back is still damn handy.
OK! Final style! We're almost there, cannons!
Last but not least is her S style from the very first Tower event the game released. Lightning from that style amplifies into a 0 BP lightning attack, similar to Lightning Crash from GLEX Roc. Triggering just the lightning portion of her Goby Hook Switch ability is obviously worse than trigger both portions, but it's better than triggering none of them which is what her staff bonk would do. If you don't have Lightning Crash, consider Lightning+ as a filler spell for those turns where she needs to recharge BP - it sustains the DEF boost and it gives her a little more bonus heals.
But Lightning+ isn't the spell we really care about, here. The spell we really care about here is Dark Wash. Dark Wash amplifies into a 10 BP SSS-rank shadow attack, which is already a compelling option over the abysmally-named Lightning of Darkness. But above-and-beyond that, Dark Wash+ removes all stat buffs on its target — not just their INT buffs like Goby Spark does. Getting that buff break function out of a cheaper spell and for all stats is a pretty big deal, and since this is from a tower style, every player has access to it. She has a highly awkward BP rotation using it, so it's not accurate to say she can use it every-other-turn or every-three-turns, but she can use it frequently enough that she can keep even bosses that have pretty aggressive stat buffing in check fairly well.

Macha

Unit Summary

Overdrive damage enabler made far better with an inherit from her last style.

Unit Analysis

Macha with no inherits is kinda meh, honestly. She can theoretically get a lot of BP going between her innate +1 BP/turn and her S1's 25% chance to grant her +4 BP on cast. And she has a ~40% chance to chase every attack with Crimson Flare+, which is a pretty hefty chase attack backed up by her 65% damage boosts. But where she falls down is what she can spend that BP on.
Flame Bash and Saga Magical Train are both AoE attacks. Neither one is especially impressive damage-wise, but they both have decent rider effects. Flame Bash will buff Macha's INT (before attacking, so she gets the buff before damage is dealt) and Magical Train inflicts Sundered on the the targets for 2 turns. Sundered makes the enemy take more damage with each attack they take that turn, meaning if you have Liam and Silver on-deck, they wind up taking a ton of damage just from the chase attacks.
Macha benefits strongly from getting more Overdrive turns, both because inflicting Sundered first thing in the turn helps maximize the damage you get out of it and also because she chases Overdrive attacks with Crimson Sunflare, getting a free trigger on the Sundered effect.
Unfortunately, Macha's only innate defenses and a good chunk of her damage modifiers come from an automatic Morale Up and Guard Up she gets every turn, which do not stack with other Morale Up or Guard Ups. That gives her poor synergy with styles like Music Fest Goddess who grant the party Guard Ups, or Riki who grants the party Morale Ups, or Summer Fatima who does both. And since Macha is only helping to deal more damage, that failure to stack with other Morale Ups/Guard Ups does actually hinder her compared to other characters like Urpina who have innate defenses that do stack with Guard Ups and can dish out a decent amount of damage on their own whilst also helping to squeeze more damage out of their teammates.

Inherits

Divine Tree from her Lunar New Year style helps solve the issue above where the only thing Macha does is damage. Divine Tree is two hits of C-rank blunt/pierce damage which recovers the party's HP on each hit. Divine Tree is actually a decent attack in its own right, and with Macha's +BP tools you can use it frequently enough that it becomes the most heals-per-turn any character can muster without specific kinds of cooperation from the enemy. Of course, you don't wind up using it every turn, which can sometimes be a drawback (you may need the heal on a turn when her BP isn't ready), but on average it winds up being a very, very good healing tool.

Beef... it's what's defeating the enemies — Romancing Festival Limited Banner

Polka Lynn Wood

Unit Summary

Polka is a tank who can get in some counter hits, heal up his teammates, and dispense big hits that come attached to big attack boosts for the party.

Unit Analysis

First is Hearty Steak. Polka sizzles up a decent heal for a teammate and the charbroiled flavor continues to grant them an end-of-turn tiny heal for the next 5 turns. Whenever Polka uses it, he also grants himself that same 5 turns of end-of-turn heal. So it winds up being a good amount of healing for the LP, actually.
Second is Rising Kuroge Wagyu. Polka throws a whole-ass cow at the enemy for SSS-rank heat damage and the... smell...? grants the party a very large attack boost for the rest of the turn. Thankfully, it has [Fast] priority, so it's going to be rare for the attack boost to go to waste. Polka's damage is decent enough on his own, I suppose, but the attack boost for the party is still going to be the meat of the skill, here.
Third is his ability Skills of a Chef. Skills of a Chef is a solid damage mitigation ability plus Flame Ward (polka takes no heat damage and counters all direct attacks with a little heat attack) plus Overdrive chaser. What's the Overdrive chaser? It's Rising Kuroge Wagyu!
-presses hand to ear- I'm sorry, I've been informed that it's not an Overdrive chaser, it's an Overdrive counter. So on Overdrive turns, every time Polka gets hit, he drops a big heat attack on the enemy and he boosts the party's damage some more. If you have characters using big Delay attacks or you just expect Polka to get hit a lot that turn, that attack boost adds up for serious damage.
The longer the fight goes on the tougher Polka gets, so after 5 turns he's pretty tanky (nearly 60% mitigation) and has both reliable self-heal-on-hit and on-demand heal/turn. So he can take those direct attacks like a champ.

Inherits

Still Blade Phoenix is the big one, giving Polka a 9 BP SSS slash/heat delay attack that drops a decent-sized heal on the party. This Polka is slightly tankier than Robin Polka (the style that has that skill), has better BP rotation, and has slightly better self-heal potential, but winds up dealing less damage if the enemy is dishing out lots of direct attacks. (No stacking buff-on-hit and a weaker counterattack.) Your call, there.
If party-wide heals aren't your concern, there's also Back Detonation, an 8 BP SS heat attack that has a medium(!) self-heal. Medium self-heal is substantial enough that it can actually overheal with enough CHA buffs in play. And at the lower BP cost than Still Blade, Polka can use it more often, just straight face-tanking for the team.

Liz Lynn Wood

Unit Summary

Combination WIL buffer and counter defense booster. It's... yeah, it's weird, just read further.

Unit Analysis

OK, so Liz parallels Polka significantly. Where Polka has decent damage and slowly stacks up defense, Liz starts with solid defenses and slowly stacks up damage. Where Polka counters with an attack boost on overdrive turns, Liz counters with a defense boost. Where Polka has heals for the party and self-heals, Liz has WIL buffs for the party and self-heals. Where Polka ignores heat damage, Liz ignores cold damage.
The main difference between the two is that Polka is going to want to save his BP for the big attack + attack boost, where Liz is more likely to want to spam Aqua Bash+, the WIL buff. Aqua Bash is actually a decent attack (B-rank column cold damage for 4 BP) and has the highest Overdrive gain of any skill in the game (restores 25% of the gauge on hit), making her very good at cycling her Overdrive meter back to full. When she overdrive counters with Karatsu Water Wall, she grants a huge defense boost to the party, meaning in situations where you can focus a lot of direct attacks onto Liz, she can wind up absolutely flooring the damage the party takes on her Overdrive turns. And with support from Emelia and Thyme, you can make sure those overdrive turns happen pretty dang frequently.
Honestly, the spammable WIL buff on its own is a pretty sweet deal, but in battles where direct attacks are flying every which way? Yeah, Liz will put in work.

Inherits

Droplet from her last all-mage style is a spot heal that grants the target Guard Up. Great for helping someone survive a turn when Liz doesn't have Overdrive built up yet.
Twin Arrows from her A style (story reward from Polka's story) amplifies into an attack that grants her two tiny self-heals on hit for 3 BP. Great for helping top Liz's health back up between Overdrive turns.

Jo

Unit Summary

Supportish unit who gets to be super tanky for 10 total turns per battle.

Unit Analysis

When Jo's Overdrive gauge isn't full, she has 55% damage mitigation and 20% damage modifiers. When it is full, she has 30% damage mitigation and 45% damage modifiers.
On her overdrive turns, you will want to use Glacial Ray, a 10 BP SSS cold/sun attack with delay. Glacial Ray can only be used 5 times per battle (it's an arbitrary limit; think of it as costing 1 LP but you get to keep the LP for KO purposes), but it causes Jo to ignore all damage for 2 turns. With 55% damage mitigation on turns outside of that window, I don't think I need to explain how good that makes Jo at not getting KO'd.
OK, so she's tough to KO. That's great. What else she do? Well..... not a ton, actually. Glacial Ray is by far her best attack, the other two being E-rank damage and a B-Rank AoE. Fresh Squid (the E-rank attack) includes a self-heal, which is great, but again, it's not bringing much damage to the table. And Ice & Fire Giant Squid, the AoE, is fine damage-wise, and it even includes a Medium Morale Down for 2 turns to help keep damage input low for the rest of the team, but it's 8 BP, so you won't be spamming it.
Now, in fairness, Jo does get +2 BP/turn, so it's not at all difficult to rotate Hot/Cold Squid or to be ready with 10 BP for Glacial Ray on overdrive turns. But if you don't need the AoE component of the Morale Down, she also offers less damage than Aisha does with Earth Thrust, which also maintains a Morale Down.
Now "extremely sturdy + maintains Morale Down" is still a very good deal, don't get me wrong. There's definitely going to be battles where Jo is going to be better to bring than Aisha. But it's also not breaking new ground.

Inherits

Lots, but I'm going to focus on two.
Sunshower from her S style (a GLEX style that was awarded during an event I no longer recall; probably going to be avaialble as a drop at some point this month) is a 4 BP cold/sun AoE attack that grants the party a tiny heal. This is actually BP-positive on this style, since she gets +2 BP/turn automatically, allowing Jo to spam that heal until it's time to drop Glacial Ray. Or if you need the Morale Down more, you can have Sunshower in your back pocket to spend a little excess BP on to help keep the party topped up while you're rotating Hot/Cold Squid.
The other is Sparkling Ice from Robingal. Sparkling Ice deals SSS cold/sun damage, chases with SSS heat/sun damage, and then paralyzes Jo for 3 turns. This is not the highest-damage Jo to utilize this spell, but she is the only Jo style that can use it every-other-turn should you have someone who can cleanse the paralyze.

(If this post is still up, I'm still looking!)
Hey there. I really want to develop a female led/slight gentle femdom relationship with a special guy.
When a lot of men see the term "female led relationship," they think, "Oh, the woman will make all the decisions with no input on what I think/want."
Are there dynamics like that? I'm sure there is. Personally, I'm not looking to be "the boss" or "above" you in any way. I want us to be equal... but have you give up control to me in a few other ways. :)
What do I mean? Keep reading on!
● ABOUT ME ●
You can call me Dreamer for now. (I'll tell you my real name once we get to know each other) Please do NOT call me Miss, Master, Dominatrix or Ma'am.
I'm 25 years old and an INFJ-T. I live in Nashville, Tennessee, USA (AKA Music City) and I'm on Central Standard Time. I'm a Black woman and I stand 5 feet, 7 inches tall. My eyes are brown and I wear glasses. I don't have any tattoos or piercings at the moment.
One thing I want to mention is that I'm plus size, AKA a bigger girl. I'm undergoing a vertical sleeve gastrectomy in two months to lose the excess weight I have in a sustainable and permanent way. I'm ready to regain my body and be healthy and confident again. I'd love to have you by my side throughout my journey!
As far as personality goes, I'd describe myself as empathetic and sweet. I like to help others as much as I can. In person, I tend to be rather shy at first. People tend to mistake that for weakness or gullibility. I'm anything but; my strength lies in introspection and quiet observation. I notice every nuance of a person's actions, words, body language, vibe... my intuition hasn't steered me wrong yet!
● INTERESTS ●
I won't go into detail on every single interest that I have but I'll talk about my biggest ones that you'll likely hear me mention the most.
✨️Writing✨️
I've been writing since I was six years old, but I started taking it seriously around 13 years old. All in all, it's been 19 years. As of right now, I primarily write Fanfiction but in the past, I've written short stories, poetry and I even tried to learn how to write screenplays at one point.
I wrote my first full-length book in 2018/2019. I started the sequel in early 2020, but I'm still working on it. I lost a LOT of inspiration during the pandemic but I'm finally writing for it again.
If you also enjoy writing, I'd love to "talk shop" with you and maybe we can exchange some of our past works.
✨️Music✨️
Music has gotten me through a lot over the years. Yeah, yeah, I know everyone says that. But it truly has. It's shaped my life and introduced me to a lot of things and people that I probably never would've done or met otherwise.
There's no point in saying I like xyz genre because I've listened to pretty much everything. The only ones I truly hate are country and gangster rap. If you want specifics, though... I've been a HUGE twenty one pilots fan for 9 years. (I have more merch, stickers and other random shit than I care to admit to lmao) I also love other artists like Amber Run, Purity Ring, Phantogram, Daughter, Lorde, OneRepublic... plus tons more.
I've always had this dumb idea of a guy and I confessing to each other through playlists with songs that make us think fondly about each other...
God, I'm single.
✨️Photography✨️
I've been into photography for 10 years and I've had my DSLR for eight years. (It's definitely the camera version of 'Ol Reliable) I enjoy nature and portrait photography. I'd love to show you some of my work and get your thoughts on it.
✨️TV/Movies✨️
TV genres I like: Animation (like Spongebob), comedy, drama, documentaries (disaster and crime ones are my favorites), true crime (like Forensic Files), old sitcoms (like Sanford and Son) and cooking and baking competitions/reality TV (like Kitchen Nightmares US and UK, Hell's Kitchen, Master Chef, The Great British Baking Show, etc)
Movie genres I like: Animation, drama, comedy, action, psychological thrillers and science fiction. I thoroughly loved The Greatest Showman so one could say I like musicals but it's the only one I've seen so not sure if that really counts. Comic book movies are pretty alright too, but I really haven't seen anything past the first Avengers movie lmaooooo.
I say this as unpretentiously as possible, but I haven't seen most popular TV shows or movies that your average person likes. I think the last "popular" thing I watched was that Jeffrey Dahmer series on Netflix. (mainly out of morbid curiosity because everyone was freaking out about it... and because I think Evan Peters is a cutie) I only saw a few episodes and then forgot to watch the rest of it, but it wasn't as horrific as everyone was saying. Maybe I've watched too much Forensic Files and I'm desensitized lmao.
✨️Video and computer games✨️
Video game genres I like: Adventure, action-adventure, RPGs & JRPGs, Strategy... basically anything that is relatively fun and not horror related.
Some of my all-time favorites: Kingdom Hearts II, Ratchet and Clank, Journey, Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X.
As far as computer games, the only thing I play on a regular basis is The Sims 2 and The Sims 4. As a kid, I loved simulator and time-management games; some old favorites are the RCT series, Simcity: Rush Hour, the first four Diner Dash games, the Delicious series and Burger Shop 2 (which I still have on my computer actually lmao)
✨️Other random interests✨️
Art, traveling, people watching, researching random topics on Wikipedia and watching YouTube, especially channels with old shows and movies.
☆ CAREER ☆
My last position was working nights at a psychiatric hospital. I'm looking for something new at the moment.
☆ ET CETERA ☆
I really love dogs and cats. I have three cats and they're little demons but I love them to death. I also love small animals like ferrets, bunnies and snakes!
My main love languages are words of affirmation, quality time and gift giving/receiving. To be honest, though, there's elements of each language that I enjoy or relate to in one way or another.
I don't smoke and I drink every so often. Otherwise, I'm vaccinated and DDF.
● ABOUT YOU ●
I'm looking for a guy between the ages of 23-33 years old. I might be willing to talk to someone within two years in either direction (so 21 min and 35 max) if you meet all my other preferences/wants. If you're younger than 21 or older than 35, though, please don't contact me.
Please be single and emotionally available. I won't interact with anyone already in a relationship or married (even if you're separated or in a "dead bedroom," you're STILL married) and I'm especially not interested in anyone poly/ENM. I'm definitely 100% monogamous.
Hair is super important to me! I prefer medium length to long hair, something I can stroke and play with a lot lmao.
I have a REALLY big soft spot for blue and/or doe eyes, but don't let that deter you. If you have kind eyes, I'll fall in love with them, no matter their color!
I tend to like softer facial features and even softer personalities. Are you super masculine in public but a total softie in private? Lovely! Are you less masculine but a little more feminine? Great! Are you androgynous or otherwise fall somewhere in between? I can dig it!
Key traits that I like in a guy include, but are not limited to: Being sweet, gentle, empathetic, considerate, an active listener, exceptional at communication and willing to go the extra mile for those that you love, be it family, friends, your partner, etc.
With that being said, it's important that you have time for me. I'm not expecting us to talk 24/7 but if you're always too busy to talk to me, this won't work. At some point, I'd like for us to also talk on the phone as our schedules permit, of course.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, please be from the USA/North America and willing to meet and get to know each other in person ASAP.
● WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR ●
It's important to me that you're an active listener; what I mean is that you'll make an effort to listen to what I have to say and respond to it accordingly. If I tell you my thoughts on a matter or ask you a question or give you a compliment etc etc, please respond to it. It makes me feel so sad and small if I feel like my thoughts or opinions are not important/relevant.
I can tell pretty quickly if someone is genuinely interested in me or not. Like I said before, I notice everything lol.
I mentioned earlier how one of my love languages is words of affirmation. One of the ways I enjoy that is through compliments. I'm not looking for you to worship the ground I walk on, but being told "You look beautiful" or "When you do xyz, that makes me really happy" makes me feel SO seen and appreciated.
It's incredibly frustrating to send a picture of myself and get a lukewarm response in return. :(
Affection is also super important to me. Holding hands, hugging, kissing, cuddling, touching... all the cute couple shit. I want you to touch me, not in a pervy way, but in an affectionate way. I want to stroke your hair while I hold you close... little things like that make me incredibly happy.
Keep in mind, everything I want from you, I'll give to you in return. I'll always listen and acknowledge you, give you compliments, shower you in affection, plus whatever else makes you feel wanted and appreciated as a person and in a relationship.
● OUR DYNAMIC ●
I always want you to have a choice and be able to voice your opinion. I will never degrade or boss you around in general, but especially when it comes to your personal choices. I'm a switch that used to be a predominant sub and believe me, I've had doms tell me before, "I make the decision on what you wear, what to eat, who you hang out with, etc etc... because I'm your dom and what I say goes."
Some people may like that. More power to them. But I'm not like that. I want you to feel free to express yourself. If you want my opinion, I'll give it to you, of course. But my job is to build you up and support your decisions, no matter how small!
Again, I'm not looking for you to kiss my ass. I'd love for you to take the lead on most decisions (with my input, of course). But I want you to also have a "service" attitude; whether that's helping out with household chores or surprising me with a massage after work or giving me flowers "just because" or helping me paint my toenails lol... just to name some examples. The sky's the limit.
That extends to "the bedroom" as well. I want my pleasure to be just as important to you as yours is to me.
In short? I just want to feel doted on and taken care of. I want to be the most important person in your life and you be the most important person in my life. I want to make you feel special and praise you and tell you how much you mean to me. And I want the same in return. 💓
● "KINKS" ●
This is inevitably gonna come up at some point. I'll say when it comes to my "kinks" (if you want to call them that) I like:
Teasing, edging, telling you when you can cum and begging me for it (I believe it's called orgasm control/denial), moaning, praise, blindfolds, eye contact, body worshiping (you and me), breast worship, oral, fingering and using toys on you...
Been a little curious about pegging someone one day. We'd have to build up to it, of course, because I don't want to hurt you. If you're not into that, though, don't worry! It's definitely not a requirement.
Things I do NOT like (or hard limits) are:
Humiliation, degradation, anything that causes you or me physical, emotional and mental harm, blood, pee, scat, vomit, diapers, CNC, ageplay, raceplay, hitting, slapping, choking or anything else illegal, unethical or otherwise unloving.
● IN CONCLUSION... ●
If you read all of this, good job! Here's a cookie, hope you like chocolate chip. 🍪
Seriously, though, I can't name every little thing I want. Despite the length of this post, I'm not trying to play Build-A-Boy. I realize you have your own caveats and that's totally fine. Let's get to know each other and see what happens. All I ask for, again, is that you want a serious, longterm relationship and not view me as just some sort of "kink dispenser."
Chats or DMs are fine. When you send me a message, please include the following...
• Name or alias • Location • Age • Height, body type, hair cololength, eye color • Your interests/hobbies • Whether you're a sub or a switch • What you're looking for out of a relationship and something (or things) you really enjoyed about my post • A clear, SFW picture of yourself • Your current favorite song (so I know you actually read through all of this) • Whatever else you want to add to catch my attention. The more you can match my "detailed energy," the better.
I won't reply to those who ignore my preferences or the message requirements above. If you send me nudes/dick pics/sexting or FWB requests/rude messages, you will be blocked and reported.
Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope you have a good night!

• Dreamer

(P.S. I don't use Snap, Kik, Telegram, WhatsApp and whatever else. I use Discord and I only give my cell number out to people that I'm comfy with.)

Hey all, found this recently through a Bot basically dming me and telling me its a great game for me cause Im into Gaming. Ah yes, the infamous Gaming Genre of Gaming. I am definitely into Gaming, especially when it comes to Gaming and Gaming. Yea.
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Anyhow, the game itself is marketed as a Web3 FPS game and has direct NFT tie-ins. If that wasnt bad enough, lemme point out some HEAVY issues with not just the marketing as they have a trailer but also other issues besides it.
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1. If you look up Havens Compass Thirdperson you will find as the first and second result that the game is a Thirdperson Shooter. This is from an old Bio that somehow is still active in google. The new bio however mentions none of it and neither does the Trailer they put it recently show it as Thirdperson. https://i.ibb.co/tJzTSF5/image.png
2. There is already before release a heavy marketing campaign on NFTs as well as the advertising of NFT Marketplaces. https://i.ibb.co/HFBznDk/image.png
3. Right now the game supposedly is in Beta with the actual release launching in 2025. But their trailer says none of that and only says its gonna release in June. At which point they also already sell or Mint Gamekeys?? https://i.ibb.co/rGxHQGC/image.png
4. Both the Trailer and the Website market the game as an extra ordinary shooter with cool abilities and with heavy focus on Strategy and Action: Which on its own is fine if it wasnt for the fact that its trying to sell itself as more than any other game while describing itself as literally any other game. - They literally describe a shooter like Borderlands or Overwatch with Abilities that are customizable and more realistic guns. Realistic Guns btw which are modeled by modern standard but are supposed to be from 2140. Watch the trailer, I am not making this up. https://i.ibb.co/4VKTWCL/image.png (There is also a HUGE issue with how vague they are with their descriptions. Its like listening to someone talk for hours but they said nothing of value)
5. The next smaller issue you will find is the fact that the account is 100% botted and boosted. 12.5k followers with their trailer getting just around 1000 likes and rts. Which fine is not shabby but then the rest of their tweets maybe get like 50 likes and rts at best. https://i.ibb.co/d079gsw/image.png

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Now onto the Trailer. I will not go over it in its entirety but more so over the key points that stuck out as to what was said.
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The first thing they say is that its the ultimate FPS Shooter. Alright, confident. Like it.

1. The Lines between the Virtual and Reality are blurred and thus the players would need to adapt to survive. For one, what does that sentence even mean? The Virtual World and Reality? Virtual stuff on its own? You can kill people with PNGs and Gifs now. Oh wait I guess that makes sense since you can mint NFTs and even Game keys with this game.
2. This game is not your ordinary FPS, in fact it has a high focus on Tactical and Strategic Gameplay! Like... Literally every other FPS game. Even TF2 has a high focus on Tactical and Strategic Gameplay, its called "Dont go around the Corner, the Enemy team has a hacking Sniper!" Jokes aside, no seriously, this describes every shooter in the world. Not that the trailer itself shows you any tactical gameplay aside from cornerpeeking and Aim Down Sights gameplay.
3. Brother the sound effects and Ragdolls... They dont mention this but when you listen to it and watch it its just genuinly sad. This screams Unreal Asset Flip.
4. As the player you have a Robotic Spine which can be used to customize your player character. This way players can add new abilities to their character which however only work for a limited amount of time (and likely on a cooldown, thats me saying this btw, they dont mention it). So damn, they got special abilities? In a shooter? And you get to customize character? Well hot damn, Ill buy 500 keys! Oh wait thats like literally every modern shooter that isnt Cod plus customization on top.
5. The weapons from the year 2140 are design with Realism in mind! Damn! Thats good! So sad they sound like crap. Oh and of course we use bullets in the year 2140. You know cause Creativity rots once you get too much money I guess.
6. The trailer makes no mention of the fact that the game is completely based on NFTs. You can only buy game keys by minting them. You can only buy packs as NFTs. You can get ingame items as NFTs. You can get all this info by looking at their website and account itself. But the trailer mentions NONE of it and I feel its obvious as to why they dont. https://www.havenscompass.com/ https://twitter.com/HavensCompass
7. The Trailer thus far although obviously boosted, has gotten the most attention out of all their tweets. Its already sus but whats even worse is that most if not all accounts commenting are already cryptobros. So not only does the trailer which says nothing about the game mislead new possible customers by not stating that there is an NFT thing going on, people who never heard of NFTs or Crypto (yes normies exist) may end up falling into the trap of wanting to buy the game and wanting to just mint a key cause why not. Game seems neat to them so hey its not big deal. And down the rabbithole of scams they fall.

I am playing my first Final Fantasy game ever which is Final Fantasy VII for the PS1. Here is the last part for those who are interested: https://www.reddit.com/FinalFantasy/comments/13w56dmy_first_final_fantasy_game_ever_part_14/
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I last left off with Cloud coming back to the party and for this part I will be talking about getting the Red Huge Materia and the side stuff that I did.
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For gameplay, in terms of story the most unique thing to happen was the submarine minigame. TBH, I thought this was the most stressful minigame because I kind of had no idea what I was doing. I am just happy that that 10 minute time limit is very lenient. I was able to win with 4 minutes left. After getting the submarine I did investigate the underwater and saw a few things. I found the Red Huge Materia and the Gelnika ship. So I was able to get the Hades summon and the Highwind Manual among other trinkets. After the Gelnika Ship I found what I think is the Green Weapon. I have steered away from it but now I am a little scared anytime I go into the sea. At what level should I take on the Green Weapon cause already the Black Weapon looks to be really strong. That said, with the Submarine I was able to go north where I was able to find a waterfall crater. I will talk more about the waterfall crater in the story mode. Too bad I didn't get any cool weapon or armor from the cave but the story implications more than made up for it. But before I got the submarine, I tried to get the Omnislash Manual from the Gladiator Arena in the Golden Saucer. I was able to get the Manual but oh my god was it challenging. I can not leave the room without losing my BP but Omnislash cost 32,000 BP. I thought I could get the manual with 60 BP but I was only able to get 16,000. My only salvation was that I found this random guy outside the Golden Saucer who was able to give me 100 BP for 10k gil. I sold my Mastered All Materia for over 1 million gil so I was able to pay for it. As for the Gladiator game, one of the worst things that happened to me was the Manipulate Materia. I never used the manipulate command before and I used it for the first time in this minigame. After beating the first centipede, I was controlling the second centipede and I had no way of attacking the monster. Because Cloud was controlling the monster and I could not control Cloud, I had to attack myself until my HP hit zero and restart. This was an absolutely terrible experience and I had regrets lol. I learned a valuable lesson which was to never use manipulate when I can control only one person. After a long trial, I was able to get Omnislash but it was hard getting it. After getting Omnislash, I investigated the cliffs in Mideel and some weird things happened. Because I could not go into every area after snowboarding because I passed out, I went back to areas I missed. I made my way into a hot springs which I thought was weird how hot springs could exist in a icy cold area. I wanted to save my game because I was done for the day so I tried to the so the the cabin all the way in the north. I found a random cave and saw some weird stuff. There was a crazy purple person who was angry with me because I touched hot springs. I honestly do not know what happened but it resulted in me getting the Alexander Summon Materia. I like Alexander, he is a Pacifista from One Piece before Pacifista even existed. Given how this game rewards backtracking, one of the biggest conclusions I have come from this game is that Final Fantasy would make a great Zelda game. Going to through dungeons and unlocking new materia like how you get items in Zelda.
Now that I have gotten the Red Huge Materia, I have to go to Rocket Town for the last Huge Materia which is not Yellow, Green, or Red (I think it will be blue). I just realized that the 4 types of materia one can use: green magic materia, blue support materia, red summon materia, and yellow command materia correspond to the Huge Materia that we have to get in the game, I wonder if there is a Purple Huge Materia for the Solo-Self Working Materia. I predict that the Four Huge Materia combine into a single Materia that will be purple.
​
Now for the story. There was not much story for getting the Red Huge Materia but I have a lot to talk about regarding the side stuff I did. For starters, I went back to the Nibelheim basement and I found out the truth behind Zack Fair and the post-Nibelheim Incident Experiments. One thing I forgot to talk about in the previous part was how the truth about the Nibelheim Incident did show something about Sephiroth's character prior to going insane. Sephiroth, a war hero, someone who everybody aspires to be asked Cloud, a nobody, a faceless Shinra infantryman how he feels returning home. This really highlights Sephiroth's character because he it shows that he used to care about the people around him. Now regarding the basement. So after the Incident, both Cloud and Zack were experimented on in that basement for FIVE YEARS. 5 years, being unconscious and in a tube being injected with Mako sounds absolutely terrible. I believe Cloud is 21 in the present of this game, so he should 16 during the Incident. This means that Cloud is a 21 year old while having the mind of a 16 year old. Cloud has a lot of trauma that I think therapy would do wonder for him. PTDS, Identity Crisis, and Memory Issues is hard to live with. Tangent aside, Zack was able to break free from his capsule and rescues Cloud and escapes Nibelheim by riding a truck to Midgard. Due to Cloud being infused with Mako for FIVE YEARS, Cloud is out of it for the entire time. I like the subtle detail of Zack thinking about crashing at Aerith's house but shuts down the idea because Aerith's mother would be there. What is heartbreaking is that Shinra is chasing the SOLDIER duo so Zack and Cloud have to abandon the truck. Zack then defends Cloud and fights Shinra soldiers and how he gets gunned down. The death of Zack fair is brutal, point-blank machine gun fire to the chest. Then seeing Cloud starting to finally get the sense of his reality and crawl to Zack while still being affected by Mako poisoning is sad. Given Cloud's uniform and proximity to Midgard Zack's death takes place, I think it is safe to assume that the Zack's death happens right before Cloud joins AVALANCHE. So when we talk to Zack's parents in Gongaga and they say that they haven't seen or heard from Zack for 5 years, they do not know that their child is dead. That is incredibly morbid. If I go to Gongaga, can Cloud tell them about Zack?
It is really impressive how Square Enix was able to connect the Nibelheim flashback to the present the main game despite the 5 year difference. Because while the event may have taken 5 years apart, in Cloud's mind they are practically back-to-back.
That said, when it comes to Zack as a whole I do have some level of mixed feelings. On one hand, there is the mystery of the Nibelheim Incident and he is a character brought up since going to Gongaga for the first time. But given how important he is to the story overall from being Aerith's boyfrend and Cloud's best friend from SOLDIER and being the key piece in the flashback, I would have liked to see more of him. I get the challenges it would bring, when should we see more of Zack and how much because it is a fine line to get the sweetspot but it would be nice to see it happen. It is not a huge bummer but it would make this great game even better.
The other major story segment for me is the waterfall cave. SEPHIROTH'S MOTHER IS ALIVE. Her name is Lucrecia and she tried to kill herself but she can't because of the Jenova cells inside of her. We also see the backstory of Vincent. So Vincent was a former Turk which we knew before be joined the party. But he was in love with Lucrecia but she rejected him and instead spent time with a black-haired glasses man who for the time being I will name Billy. Eventually Lucrecia becomes pregnant and I can only assume Billy is the father. Over time, Vincent did not like the experiments Billy was doing and when he objected, Billy shot him and that is what lead to the experimentation on Vincent to made him what he become. Now the question becomes: who is Billy? I think Billy is Dr. Hojo. The reason why I think Billy is Hojo is because the only reason why Vincent joins the party is to get revenge on Hojo. So seeing that Billy pulls a glock and pops Vincent in the chest, it would make the most sense that Billy is Hojo as getting shot in the chest is a good motivation for revenge. But if Billy is Hojo, does that make him Sephiroth's father? I swear if Hojo is Sephiroth's father than my love life will take a shot from a video game. Sephiroth is a beautiful man and I can only assume that he got the genes from Lucrecia but if Hojo can bag Lucrecia, how much rizz does Hojo have? In a game that features talking cats, a planet with an immune system, crystals that can summon a world-ending meteor, the most unrealistic thing would have to be the possibility that Dr. Hojo has the rizz to bag Lucrecia and become Sephiroth's father. I think the only possible reason why Lucrecia would even think of smashing Hojo has to be mind-control from Hojo to allow this to happen (which would literally be a crime) or the smashing was done out of science. I swear whatever made Lucrecia reject Vincent had to be something major like Vincent killed Lucrecia's parents unknowingly. Vincent is infinitely better than Hojo as both in looks and as a person. Hojo's rizz is easily the biggest mystery of the series. Hojo getting women is just something I cannot believe. Other forces have to have taken place for such an atrocity to occur.
Regarding Lucrecia, it was heartbreaking to learn that Sephiroth was immediately taken away from her the moment he was born which meant that she never had a chance to even hold him. Sephiroth's life was full of isolation and he did not experience love, not from a parent or anybody. In a sense, Sephiroth is the definition of "I am what you made me" as his life is fulfilling Jenova's purpose which Shinra had a hand in doing as they were the ones who injected Sephiroth with Jenova cells. While Sephiroth is obviously wrong for what he is doing, it makes a lot more sense of why he is doing it.
​
And this is pretty much what I did in this part, now I must head to Rocket Town to fight for the last Huge Materia.
​
Something I want to add regarding Zack's death is how he is no longer alone. In Gongaga, Aerith tells the gang that Zack was her boyfriend but she never saw him for a long time, turns out it was because he died. And now Aerith dies in the main game so now she can be reunited with Zack in the Lifestream. It really is a bittersweet ending for the pair.
​
As always, please do not spoil what I have yet to complete in this game. That said, how much of the game have I completed. While I do not want to know what event I need to complete but how much as percentage do I have left? Because there are still things I want to do like getting Limit Break Level 4 Manuals for Tifa and Barrett and getting a golden chocobo in Kalm.

Mirracles do happen! Some great matches in the second round and some really zesty stuff in the third. Ladies first tonight, the ATP should be up in a few hours. Congrats to noomuam, Belle23, Dikkeduece, TehoInBugg, and Bmr33 on rounding out the top 5 in the WTA bracket contest so far <3.

Swiatek vs Wang :

Swiatek had some early difficulties against Liu. She gave back a break, she seemed frustrated by umpire overrules, and there were some swats at the ground with her racquet. It has to be tough to get as fired up as she does to compete and then not see the ball go through the hoop when the hoop feels large. Claire Liu doesn’t really have the game to compete with Swiatek, but a lot of players on tour beat themselves when facing a top player and she stayed steady in the first set. The second set was the usual Swiatek roll. The freedom to open up her game and the lack of scoreboard pressure really turns her into another opponent, which is why I think she struggles against the big servers at times.
Up next for Iga is a much tougher test against Xinyu Wang, who got past Rebecca Peterson in two very competitive sets. While checking out the 5-5 game in the first I realized there are a lot of matches on tour that aren’t very influential in the grand scheme of the draw, so they just get overlooked. Peterson and Wang was objectively a higher quality affair than Swiatek Liu, but the networks stick with the big names. When the big names aren’t there though, they wonder how to promote the game. It’s the same issue that golf had for a while after Tiger Woods left. Promote the sport first, not the players, and the fans will get to know the players on their own.
This match will be the first real look at Swiatek’s level, the same way Fucsovics was our first glance at Djokovic. Wang has a solid serve, and a really capable forehand. Her backhand isn’t anything special, but it isn’t a liability either. She beat Peterson by being a bit more able to generate winners off her forehand wing, so Swiatek should be okay here but still will need to improve her level. I do think that Wang’s classic approach to the game plays into Swiatek’s hands here a bit. Liu has a funkier game and hits a bit flat and uses dropshots, so if her execution is on and the flow of play is so slow she can create scoreboard pressure. With Wang, it’s the same equation throughout and I think Swiatek will find her timing and be able to create chances to get up court during the forehand to forehand exchanges. Swiatek in 2 with Wang winning around 6 games.

Andreescu vs Tsurenko :

Sometimes it feels like the players know that people are doubting them. Ahead of her match with Navarro, Andreescu was set at just -160. This seemed like a lot of respect to me for the challenger, and when this line moved to -145 as people backed Navarro, I thought something was up. Andreescu played as if she had a chip on her shoulder in this one though, and there is a small chance that hearing people were doubting her gave her a bit of extra fire. Andreescu’s power was the big difference here. Navarro never really settled in the first set, and despite going up 4-2 in the second, it felt like any errors from her would cost her a game whereas Andreescu was able to score by hitting to pretty big targets. Absent the prices, I’d have expected Andreescu to win too, and since she beat Azarenka, I think the run continues against Tsurenko.
Lesia got a walkover against Lauren Davis, and hopefully she has a quick recovery for grass season. Tsurenko is a good test of Andreescu’s consistency and stamina, as she’ll put more balls in play than Navarro who is really looking to trade power. The problem for Bianca’s opponents is going to be protecting their serves. Andreescu was able to get full swings in a large chunk of the time against Navarro, and Tsurenko doesn’t have a ton of power in her delivery. I expect given the quick nature of Andreescu’s match today that she’ll be fresh for this match. Andreescu in 2.

Schmiedlova vs Day :

Big upset for Kayla Day, probably the win of her career if you set aside minor and junior titles. Keys was able to level the match after winning the second but she just couldn’t avoid unforced errors and the pace of the slightly slowed-down RG courts allowed Day to run down most of her shots. It looked a little like the play of Fernandez, but Day hits the ball with more zip and this allowed her to beat Keys in the rallies where Madison went safe. The best of Day’s game is her inside-out forehand, because the footwork she uses is identical to when she goes cross-court. This next match is very winnable, but it’ll be a big test of her physical strength because Schmiedlova hits a very heavy ball and doesn’t miss often.
A.K. Schmiedlova was lucky to get a qualifier in round two, and made the most of it by edging past Bolsova in two hard-fought sets. Kudermetova gifted her the first round win via unforced errors, but Schmiedlova’s height and her reliable baselining let her get across the finish line. I think Kayla is a slight favorite, but thus far she’s competed against offensive talents and this one will require her to improve her ratio of winners to unforced errors (10-23 in round two). Keys gave Day 74 unforced errors in their second round, and Schmiedlova is really not looking to force the issue so this should be a long one. I do think Day’s serving is a bit sharper, and her forehand is good enough to put away the rallies she gets ahead in. Should be a marathon, but I like the junior standout. Day in 3.

Andreeva M. vs Gauff :

OH FLUFF. This is ominous, like when you find an avocado you sort of forgot you had and go to squeeze it. Mirra Andreeva is one of the most reliable phenoms I’ve ever seen. When she’s slated to win, she wins. It isn’t a gimmicky or one-dimensional game either. She moves the ball well, seems very well coached and often chooses the right shot regardless of the importance of the point, and her serve isn’t half bad. Parry hung around early but Andreeva just doesn’t give you anything. She beat Haddad Maia earlier this year but I think this is the biggest test of her career thus far. Gauff is through after dismissing Rabat finalist Julia Grabher in two quick sets. Grabher went up a break in the second, but she was unable to hold serve at all in this match and it was a good reminder that Gauff’s troubles on court really only pop up when there is actual scoreboard and career pressure (playing a big name or another junior contender). I’m not sure what she’ll feel here, playing a player who very likely watched Gauff and gained some belief from her early wins on tour. Gauff is pretty mature though, as was evident by her court chatter down a break against Grabher. After a few misses, she advised herself to calm down, and it worked.
Andreeva is good enough to play with Gauff right now. Good enough to hit through her though is a different story. I don’t expect Mirra’s level to falter because of the opposition, but Gauff is the stronger player and can serve bigger. One of them has to lose here but it doesn’t feel like either are going to play poorly. Gauff’s weight of shot is heavier but she’s a little more error prone. I’m thinking Andreeva might be good for the upset here. Andreeva in 3.

Rybakina vs Sorribes Tormo :

Sorribes Tormo was clinical today in slowing down Petra Martic’s highly skilled offense. It sets up a challenge I know Sara will be excited for even though it likely ends her tournament. Rybakina beat the tough Czech standout Linda Noskova in straight sets, and though she’s been struggling on clay this is still a quality win. Rybakina vs Sorribes Tormo may take a while, because this is the classic match where Rybakina struggles. The players who used to be able to make her play a lot of balls could get the benefit of errors. At this point in her career, it’s not clear that those will come. Tormo’s serve is not strong enough to keep Rybakina at bay, and her willingness to give up court position and try to outlast and outmaneuver her opponent is not ideal with Rybakina has such a good technical production when she has time. Tormo’s slices could cause some troubles for Rybakina since she’s pretty tall, but I don’t think Rybakina is going to hit herself out of this match, nor do I think it’ll be over quick enough (if Tormo gains the lead) for Ryba not to reset her game and play a bit more conservative. Rybakina in 2.

Alexandrova vs Haddad Maia :

Haddad Maia had the much tougher match in her second round, barely squeaking by the big hitting lefty Diana Shnaider. Shnaider seems perfectly still then uncorks huge winners and deft dropshots. It’s really fun to watch and it’s unfortunate for her that she ran into BHM in such good form. Another huge hitting affair is in store here as Alexandrova comes in playing her best tennis. She rolled Friedsam who is generally a tough defensive test, and she’s one of the only players who’s taken a set off Swiatek on clay this season. Haddad Maia won both their previous matches, but this one should be very close. Alexandrova’s defense is a bit lacking here which could be the big difference, but defense doesn’t matter if you get the first big swing in, and with both her and Haddad serving well and hitting big it’s hard to point to any other real differences. Haddad Maia in 3.

Cocciaretto vs Pera :

I caught a good chunk of Vekic vs Pera and I was surprised by how hard Pera was hitting the ball off her backhand wing. It’s usually the more error prone side for her but she really was focused today. Vekic’s movement was a little slow, and she sent a lot of forehands into the net where it just looked like her swing was a little bit late. It’s hard to pick against Pera after what I’ve just watched her produce, so I probably won’t. Cocciaretto is a really good serve though, and she has a baseline game that looks like it’s low-percentage but is relatively steady. She beat Waltert pretty easily, and she’ll have a lot of crowd support which the Americans typically have none of at RG. I expect Pera to lose the same set she did to Vekic, but for her overall power and ability to redirect on her forehand side to give her a slight edge. Really close match, but Pera in 3.

Danilovic vs Jabeur :

Paolini had the second set locked up and was up 5-2 at one point, but her legs had left the building. It’s not surprising that her recent run of matches would eventually come to an end, and once she was visibly laboring, Danilovic’s job was easy. Credit to the lefty for hitting to the open court and not missing when the match got tight. She faced some break points in the 6-5 game as well, but she could see the finish line and it has been some inspired tennis this week from the qualifier. This next round might not be winnable, but Danilovic deserves a chance to play a big name on a big stage. Jabeur has been dealing with some fitness issues and has been somewhat underwhelming this clay season, but she’s rolled through all her matches so far this week. Danilovic’s forehand is how she scores most of her points, and I think Jabeur’s power will make it tough for her to really impose her will on rallies. This is Jabeur’s first big test this event, so it’ll be interesting to see how her defense is. Jabeur in 2 close sets.

Muchova vs Begu :

Podoroska did well to win a set against Muchova, and it’s a sign that Muchova’s stellar defense against Sakkari may have been partially a matchup thing more than a consistent presence at this event. It leaves the door open in her next round for Irina Camila Begu, who advanced fairly easily past Sara Errani. Errani pushed herself to the limit, but her arm seemed a bit flat. She was rolling her serves in more than usual, and not really looking to exert. Her forehand struggled to create depth, and though she went to moonballs early, Begu knew she was safe and was employing the same strategy against a much shorter opponent. Muchova and Begu should be close, as Begu has excellent power off both wings and is used to playing extended matches. I think Karolina’s attitude on court is a lot better than Begu’s though, and having navigated a 3 set match already and defeated Sakkari, she will be familiar with adversity in a way that Begu is perhaps not yet in this event. Very thin margins to point to, but Muchova’s tennis is pretty solid also. She’ll be the less consistent player on offense, but I think her overall level is a bit higher and it’s hard to play a really sharp opponent after a slow match like Errani was. Muchova in 3.

Tauson vs Avanesyan :

This Roland Garros field is extremely strong, but there are a lot of new names making their appearance in the third round. Avanesyan was able to hold off a second set surge from Leolia Jeanjean and make her first third round appearance. It was a nice reward in terms of match difficulty because her first win was a huge upset against Bencic. This is another big name for her, and I think she’s up to the task but perhaps it will be a little tougher than Bencic despite Belinda being a much more well-known and accomplished player. The reason I think she struggles with Tauson is how much harder Tauson hits. She’s blasting her way through this draw, and Fernandez found a solid level last match but her defense couldn’t stop Clara. Avanesyan definitely is a tougher test since Leylah has been having confidence issues, but it’s a comfortable situation for Tauson playing against another junior standout. Tauson also has a pretty strong service delivery which I think will give her a small edge. Tauson in 2-3.

Potapova vs Pavluchenkova :

This is tricky because Pavlyuchenkova probably shouldn’t be here. Samsonova had a bunch of chances to put the match away including going up 5-2 in the third set. Pavs is really solid but it was an unlikely comeback so it’s hard to gauge whether Potapova, a similar offensive talent, will wind up in a similar position. These two have met once, on clay in 2021, with Potapova winning in a third set. Potapova is definitely in good form and she’s playing good offense, but Pavlyuchenkova is really consistent and the power she hits with has a way of forcing her opponents into errors. This feels like a match Potapova should win in 2, but I’d be very nervous heading into a third against Pavs.

Mertens vs Pegula :

It’s interesting to see Pegula has a heavy favorite here considering Mertens has won both their previous meetings. Pegula wins on consistency and I don’t really think that works against Elise. Mertens has one of the best games on tour for a player without a big serve, and she tends to be a gatekeeper for the later rounds but doesn’t win many titles herself. For her to beat Pegula it’ll require her to play solid and to play 10-20 shot rallies for 2-3 hours. It’s unlikely that Pegula falls flat here also because she got a walkover last round after winning the first against Giorgi. I just don’t think either player is going to be able to create easy points here, so it’ll likely come down to conditioning. Hard to ignore the h2h, but I think Pegula will win this in 3.

Blinkova vs Svitolina :

A rematch of last weeks Strasbourg final. That match was competitive but Svitolina was pretty much always in the lead. I don’t expect much to have changed here. Blinkova pulled off a tremendous upset win against Garcia, but she’s a defensive baseliner and Svitolina is the same thing but with more speed and a heavier shot. Her backhand is a little better also. Svitolina in 2.

Stearns vs Kasatkina :

Believing worked! Peyton Stearns USO futures you heard it here third! Jokes aside, that was a really good win. Ostapenko is capable of imploding but she’s a really aggressive returner and Stearns did well to get through. Up next is a match that it almost seems like she should win. Kasatkina managed to beat Vondrousova in 2 sets which is pretty impressive. She’s around -230 for the next round which might be fair, but if I look at their games on paper Stearns seems a little better. She has a better serve, she has a bigger forehand, and her backhand hits harder and goes down the line well. I know Kasatkina is playing tremendous, but this is on Stearns racquet if she can maintain the work ethic and play consistent on big points.
Stearns has a tendency to require two chances to win the same game. The break point opens up, but she sends the first return long trying to do a bit too much. The line is open, but she sends the first one a few inches wide. It’s a by-product of being in the college tennis world I expect. She was likely better than a lot of her opponents, so blasting away was a viable option. Against Kasatkina, those errors will cost you the match because she isn’t going to miss. It’ll take multiple shots per rally to maneuver Kasatkina into a spot where Stearns can safely go for a big shot, so hopefully her coaches are preparing her for a long and tactical battle. I’m fully expecting the upset, but if she loses it’ll only be to unforced errors. Stearns in 3.

Stephens vs Putintseva :

Big upset for Putintseva. Her dropshots were remarkable in this one and so was her work ethic. Zheng started off strong but she was rattled in this one and once Yelena got in a rhythm Zheng was really up against it. It makes me think that Putintseva has half a chance here against Sloane, but wow is Stephens playing well. Gracheva looked relatively helpless against Stephens. Stephens hit with more power, and her composure makes it seem like nothing you’re doing is having an effect. Gracheva is looking to play offense though, and the errors and forced shots hurt her. Putintseva is looking to wait for mistakes just the same as Stephens, so I think this will be a very close match despite Sloane’s form. Having just lost to Bronzetti, and with Putintseva having had previous success against Stephens (last win on hardcourt, and the only win on clay), I think she gets this one in 3.

Rakhimova vs Sabalenka :

Rakhimova led from start to finish against Frech, and she comes into this match being soundly disrespected by the books. Sabalenka is something like -2000 to win, and while I agree she should win, I don’t know if it’s going to be so straightforward. It seems at times that Sabalenka doesn’t really pay attention to what’s going on at the other end of the net. If she’s missing, she just keeps swinging. It’s a tactic that’s finally paying off because her serving woes are gone, but sometimes I think she’s the more consistent player and doesn’t realize it. Shymanovich fared well against Sabalenka, and it was mostly from hitting the ball solid and into the court. Despite her good play, I didn’t feel like Aryna was really in any danger, and Shimanovich did seem to be making more unforced errors than winners. I think she could have gone into hitting-partner mode and won quicker and with less expenditure of energy. Just a random thought, but sometimes you have to deviate from plan A for a quicker and simpler win.
This is a match where I also think Sabalenka doesn’t need to do as much. Rakhimova hits solid and breaks serve well. She doesn’t really deviate from the cross-court patterns and she doesn’t really go for winners from neutral. Sabalenka can look for her spots, but if she’s trying to just hit through Kamila, it may take this match to overtime since Rakhimova reflects power very well and her stamina is excellent. I’m sure Sabalenka will continue to evolve her game, but I do expect Rakhimova to win a handful of games here just due to Sabalenka forcing the issue. Sabalenka in 2-3.

Yikes.
This is dramatic, I know. I have been single for over 4 years. I'm almost 97% sure my ex bf was talking to other women online, possibly flirting and other things. Anways, I talked to guys off dating apps and even got my first number last weekend. Thought I hit the jackpot of meeting all sorts of men, and when I got the number I felt like "oh hey, maybe you arent as bad as you make it seem" never once has this guy given me a compliment, he told me I was "nice". He was drunk when he got my number, so the thought stands. Maybe he found me attractive when he initially met me, but then had second thoughts when he met me for a date when he wasn't drunk like I looked better when he was drunk. I still found him insanely attractive when i met him. He was "surprised" I had met him go to lunch. He said how the other females he met were flakey. He did pay for me, and we have been texting but yesterday I didn't hear from him. And whenever I do hear from him, it's hours and hours apart.
I've been talking to a few other guys whom the distance is far enough away that they don't want to travel that far. I asked a guy to get food, and he said, "I would, but the distance is too much," so why continue talking to me?
It hurts because I've seen men travel hours every weekend to see their significant other. My brother drives 2 hours to see his girlfriend every Wednesday and weekend.
When I went on that "date" I complimented him (not too much, just gave him compliments) and I know people are weird sometimes about compliments but I feel like if he was interested he would've said "you look amazing".
I sometimes feel that if I lost weight, I wouldn't have to deal with this. It really sucks, and knowing you're good enough to send selfies to or for a limited amount of time to chat or for sex, but to want a relationship with me is Ludacris. I am about ready to give up. It's gotten to the point where I don't believe in love, I actually never did, but I had carried hope there for a while.
It really seems like no one else around me has any issues besides me and the plus-size women. It leads me to believe men don't like bigger women as much as they claim. I just never seen it.

• Drama: Happiness Battle
  • Korean Title: 행복배틀
  • Also Known as: Battle for Happiness , Happy Battle , Haengbokbaeteul
• Network: ENA
• Premiere Date: May 31st, 2023
• Airing Schedule: Wednesdays & Thursdays
• Episodes: 16
• Director: Kim Yoon Cheol
• Cast: Lee El as Jang Mi Ho, Jin Seo Yun as Song Jung Ah, Cha Ye Ryeon as Kim Na Young, Park Hyo Joo Oh Yoo Jin, Woo Jeong Won as Hwang Ji Ye
• Streaming Source: Prime Video
• Plot Synopsis: A suspense drama depicting mothers engaged in a fierce social media battle to destroy each others' happiness for their own, to free themselves from oppression, hurt, and secrets, and regain their true selves. Adapted from the novel "Haengbokbaeteul" (행복배틀) by Joo Young Ha (주영하
• Conduct Reminder: We encourage our users to read the following before participating in any discussions on /KDRAMA: (1) Reddiquette, (2) our Conduct Rules (3) our Policies, and (4) the When Discussions Get Personal Post.
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So basically I fucked up my first year (2.6) and I’m looking for advice on how to study but I kind of feel hopeless because to get 4.0s for the next 3 years (plus retaking a C- in a prereq) is very challenging and I would only have a cGPA of 3.66. Granted one of my exams was lower than I expected and I suspect it to be a huge scantron error, costing 40% of my exam (happened to my midterm in the same class btw, got tons of marks back from it) so I’m in the process of sending a reread request for an extra 0.03 boost for my gpa, but at this point I’m gonna assume my gpa won’t change either way :/ Also my sGPA would be ~3.6 since I’ll be taking mostly science courses, idk if it’ll help me though. I’m not even at the point of the mcat and I’m stressing heavily on all this premed shit. Im wanting to achieve 520+ and i can’t even get above 3.0 first year??? I really want to be a doctor and I know how stressful it is to go to med school and residency, let alone actually working as a doctor. I know I have the potential to excel in all these things but when it comes to study or any other activity, I just lose focus very easily and binge watch YouTube for long periods of time, either that or i keep hyping myself over these posts on Reddit that got into md with a <3.5 gpa and commenting online about how a low gpa can still yield success in md, it’s useless. I try to stop these habits but it’s fruitless. I know stats aren’t everything and you don’t need a 4.0 but let’s be serious… they make up a majority of your application and high stats gives you a realistic chance of getting into us md. The only things I have going for me so far is having research experience this summer, volunteering in a pharmacy for 3 years now, did shadowing at a hospital during summer before gr 12 and I’m gonna be volunteering at my church later this summer, but of course I still need more than that, really need to start clinical hours soon. I keep on taking about MD when I could apply to DO. A part of me wants to go to DO but I want to stick to MD because 1. There aren’t as many countries I could practice in than MD 2. MD had more options for residency 3. family pressure for me to get into MD in case we have to move to another country (a good point ngl) You wanna know something funny? My parents and my sister (who’s a doctor in the US btw) are highly encouraging me to apply right after third year, my cGPA would be a 3.53 at best at that time, and they believe that I have a legitimate chance at getting into us md with THAT…. Even if I got 520+, it may be possible, but I’m most likely to not even get a single interview. The only thing I could think of is doing a masters and getting a 4.0 in that or taking an extra year to boost my gpa. I’m very open in spending more time to improve my application for med school but my family disapproves. At one point they seemed to agree but then disagreed because “this guy got in to us md with a <3.0” type shit, and if I don’t get in by the end of fourth year, they want me to go to the Caribbean, at that point, I’d rather go to DO if there was no other option for me even though it would limit my residency options. I did some research on the Caribbean and i don’t find it reliable to give me a stable future (yes, even the top Caribbean schools, I’m sure u guys know that).
Idk. I never realized there was a problem with me mentally and though I was just lazy until after first year. Maybe I’m overthinking this. Used to get 97 in gr 12 bio and in freshman I got 60 in bio. I heard this is generally a normal transition from hs to uni but I was inactive for most of the time in first year when I comes to studying. I gave up exercising before exams and didn’t return to it. I don’t even draw as much as I used to. I used to draw so much when I was in highschool, but I just stopped… Tbh I think I might have mental issues because every single time I try to stick to a plan to study (or do anything in general) it doesn’t work (as evident by my shitty first year gpa), even second semester I improved in the assignments, but I had family issues during exams (not being able to spend family time as well as missing church to study, still fucking up exams, guess I should never skip church again) I’m currently looking for advice on how to study better and planning to go see a therapist or something cause I really need to get 4.0s in the next three years to even have a reasonable chance at applying to US MD…. Oh and did I mention I was in Canada, making applying to the US that much harder (fuck Canada, fr wish I wasn’t born here)

Inside the boundless expanse of Loria Online, Guspy the elven mage drained the last of his mana vaporizing a Vickerbite. It was his third hour of grinding this particular mob, and he was getting tired.
“What’s the drop rate on this thing again?” he asked Collins.
Collins cleaved another Vickerbite with his greataxe. “0.02% or something. Getting bored?”
Guspy was indeed getting bored. Despite their grotesque appearance (they looked like flying crocodile heads with mosquito feet), Vickerbites were pushovers.
“Yeah, I might only have a few minutes’ more patience for this.”
Collins slammed his axe into the ground, causing a shockwave that killed another three. “That’s ok, we’ve been playing for a while. It just kind of feels like wasted time if we quit now, though.”
“Are you getting close to leveling?”
“Nope.”
“Me neither.”
A Vickerbite burst when he swatted it with his staff. A loot bag dropped onto the rust colored dirt.
Probably another Vicker Tongue or leg or something, Guspy thought. He almost didn’t bother to check. But when he did, he found what he and Collins had been seeking for so long.
“I got it! The belt dropped!”
“Thank God, let’s get out of here,” Collins said, regrouping with the mage he protected.
Guspy read the item description for The Belt of Endurance.
The Belt of Endurance Slot: Belt Rarity: Very Rare Earth Resistance: %%0 Air Resistance: %%0 Fire Resistance: %%0 Water Resistance: %%0 Physical Resistance: %%0 Magic Resistance: %%0 Debuff Resistance: %%0
“What the hell?” Guspy said.
“What’s wrong? Is it the wrong belt?” Collins casually swatted two final Vickerbites.
“The stats are glitched or something. It’s supposed to be 5% resistance to everything, right?”
“The BoE? Yeah, 5% resist all. Is it not?”
“It shows ‘percent percent zero’.”
Collins shrugged. “Put it on, see what happens.”
Guspy equipped the belt and checked his character’s stats. “Ha, that’s so weird. All of my resistances show backslash, open parenthesis, ‘N’, close parenthesis.”
Collins used the Warrior’s Assessment ability on Guspy. “Huh. When I analyze you, I see hashtag ‘null’.”
“That’s either really good or really bad,” said Guspy.
Collins raised his sword and struck Guspy on the shoulder.
Collins attacks you for 0 damage
“There are safer ways to check!” Guspy said.
“It didn’t hurt you, weird. Mind if I use a little Fire Fan scroll on you?” Collins asked with a toothy grin.
“You have one? Aren’t you a little over leveled for that?” Fire Fan produced a tiny cone of flame that did very little damage.
“I’m a hoarder. So, can I?” Collins wiggled the scroll between his fingers.
Guspy agreed.
Collins casts Fire Fan for 0 fire damage
“Guspy, I don’t want to alarm you, but I think that belt makes you invincible,” said Collins.
Guspy began to bounce up and down in excitement. “Oh man, think of the possibilities! I can solo raid a guild hall. The Nighthawks deserve that kind of ass whupping,” he said, referring their rival guild in Loria. “Or I can loot an end-game dungeon! We’re not far from The Death Pit.”
Collins looked into Guspy’s eyes and gave him the smile a parent gives a child when they ask where rainbows end.
“Oh, you asshole!” said Guspy.
“I think you should turn it in,” said Collins.
“Why?! Why would I do that?! The Nighthawks have been bullying us for months now. With this, I could walk right in their guild hall, wipe them out, and tear the whole thing down. They wouldn’t be able to stop me! You can’t tell me they don’t deserve it.”
“Not saying they don’t,” said Collins.
Guspy pressed, “I can farm The Death Pit for Soulflayers. Everyone in our guild could have a Soulflayer, even the newbies. They’d finally be tough enough to join us on raids. You know how they’ve been dying to play with us in high level zones. Think how happy they would be!”
“Oh, they’d be awfully happy,” said Collins.
Guspy unleashed his coup de grace. “And! I can go to Fort Murder, stroll through it without a care in the world, kill the general, and not have to split the loot with anyone. That means I would get a Headsman’s Axe, which I would of course donate to my dear friend Collins. Wouldn’t you like a Headsman’s Axe?”
“I absolutely would,” said Collins.
“Ok, good. So, I’ll just—"
“Turn it in, Guspy,” said Collins.
Guspy stamped his feet in frustration. “Why though? You just said you were on board with the Nighthawks and the Soulflayer and the axe!”
“Oh, I am. The Nighthawks need to get taught. Having the newbies be tough enough to join us would be great. I’ve been dying for a Headsman for months now. But you’d be cheating. Momma didn’t raise no cheater, and daddy didn’t raise no troll,” said Collins.
“That’s so backward. You know the Nighthawks would do that to us if they got it,” said Guspy.
“Sure enough. But we can’t control what they do, and I can’t control what you do. I just want you to remember what I’ve said before: there’s a person on the other end of that character. A person just like you. I can only imagine how tilted you’d get if someone cheated to become invincible and killed you. Or farmed their whole guild ultra-rares and used them on you. I’m just asking you, as a friend, to turn it in. Please.”
Guilt. He’s put the guilt in me, thought Guspy. What an asshole.
“Fine, I’ll head to Pokate and turn it in,” said Guspy, pouting and kicking an errant stone.
“Thanks, Gusp. I promise I’ll help you find a legit one. I gotta go, though. Play later?”
“You know it,” said Guspy, and he watched Collin’s avatar dissipate.
Guspy walked back to Pokate City, the largest player hub in the area. The journey was a particularly hazardous one. Wild beast attacks, an assassin, a rockslide, even an errant fireball from an ongoing battle, all harmless in the face of his perfect resistance. He crossed into the city proper, whitewashed buildings that held little shops and extra dimensional guildhalls. Pokate Palace loomed over all of this like a resplendent sundial. The stained-glass windows shimmered in the sunlight.
Guspy approached a beggar in the street. The beggar’s body was gaunt. His dirty rags and matted beard spoke of hungry days and cruel nights. The beggars of Loria Online were portals to moderator attention. Speaking to a beggar cued a request. A moderator would eventually take control of the beggar and offer assistance.
Guspy knelt before the beggar.
“I’d like to speak with a moderator, please.”
“All in good time, my boy,” the beggar wheezed.
Guspy felt an itch in his legs. There was still time to run wild, to reap the rewards of his lottery ticket. He cursed Collins for guilting him and attempted to distract himself. Guspy admired the features on the beggar. His eyes traced cavernous wrinkled flesh. Saw the tiny movements of lice in the filthy thick beard. Saw the faintest deposits of salt in two long tracks leading down from the cloudy blue eyes.
The beggar had been crying. Why would they include such a heartbreaking detail? Why haven’t I ever noticed this before? Guspy thought.
The clouds in the beggar’s eyes parted, revealing a bright blue sky. “Thank you for waiting, this is Raymond. How can I help you?” A voice as crisp as autumn wind now spoke through the beggar.
“Uhh, hi. I’ve got a problem with an item I found?” Guspy spoke at the mouth of the beggar.
“Sure thing! Is it an item you have equipped right now?”
“Yeah, The Belt of Endurance. The values look wonky, and It makes me immune to every element. I’m immune to physical and magic damage now too.”
There was a long pause, the beggar’s eye fluttered. “You’re reporting that an item is broken in your favor?”
Guspy winced. “Umm, yes sir? It basically makes me immortal.”
Guspy waited patiently. The moderator was using his tools to see Guspy’s menu screens, something that was normally private.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” the beggar said. “It’s a null shunt error.”
“A null shunt error?”
“Yeah. Sometimes during a drop-roll, the system shunts over a clipped value that…sometimes it breaks.”
“Ah.”
“They’re a bitch to fix. Thankfully very rare. This one is particularly bad, and I’m at the end of my shift.” The mod let out a sigh that prophesized an exhausting tedious future.
“Well…thank you for your honesty! Usually when an item glitches in a player’s favor, they keep it a secret for as long as they can. Then they have a temper tantrum when we take it away. Alright, Guspy, I’m on morning shift tomorrow. I don’t want to deal with this right now. I’m giving you eight hours of god mode. Can I trust you not to make me regret it?”
Guspy was stunned. A mod was allowing immortality for eight hours? Trusting him? Why?
“You can trust me,” Guspy said.
“I hope so. I’ll fix this in the morning, don’t take the belt off or you’ll have negative infinite resistance and die from a sunburn.” The beggar’s eyes clouded back over.
Guspy threw a gold piece into the beggar’s bowl, a good luck ritual that even the highest level raiders did before a dangerous run.
He was in the clear. A mod had okayed him having god mode. Anything I do is the mod’s fault now! Guspy thought, but the thought gave him a queasy feeling the moment it passed through his mind. He was being trusted. He had promised to not make the mod regret it.
What was the mod’s name? Randy? He remembered Collins's words about there being real people on the other end of the game. He supposed that meant Randy too. He imagined telling someone to their face that his actions were their fault, like trust somehow absolved him of responsibility. He imagined someone else doing that to him. Or doing that to his little sister…
He spent a fair amount of gold on fast travel scrolls, valuable, single-use items that would transport the player anywhere in Loria. Guspy now stood on the craggy lip of Salamander’s Eye. The massive active volcano dominated the primordial jungle landscape. A vast column of ebony smoke rose from the lava pit, the birthplace of thunderclouds. Guspy spread his arms wide and fell into the heat, letting simulated gravity carry him downward to the roiling floor of liquid earth.
At the last moment he reflexively raised his hands to shield himself. Lava was instant death in Loria, doing an infinite amount of damage per second. Guspy was now sinking slowly in this most dangerous of elements unharmed. He raised his hand in a thumbs up as he sank beneath the surface.
Whorls of incandescent crimson, brown, and orange materialized and dispersed endlessly. It was like looking into the fickle furnace of creation, so eager to invent but too chaotic to design.
Guspy wondered if he’d fall forever. At last, his feet settled on something solid. He was the first player to set foot here. A unique accomplishment, one he could keep. He moved through the lava as though it was water. Must not have been a very important thing to program considering you die as soon as you touch it, he thought.
Guspy explored the floor of the volcano. It was perfectly smooth and without texture, an entire volcano held up on a pane of glass. But then he found something. A deformity in the bottom of the world. He explored it with his hand. It felt like a solid bubble sticking up out of the flat plane beneath him. It moved a little.
It’s a doorknob! Guspy realized. He turned it and felt it fall away beneath him. He sank further and dropped into a vast open room, the lava didn’t follow past the entry. Guspy cast a series of Light spells, banishing the darkness to the black obsidian of the walls and floor.
A giant floating sign that hung suspended in midair grabbed Guspy’s attention.
“IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET HERE.”
“Shows what you know, sign,” Guspy said, and began to explore.
In the secret chamber Guspy found dozens of monster models from the surrounding area, frozen in the sterile T-position. He took the time inspect them in the minutest detail. He saw the way salamander skin glittered with the luster of countless ruby gemstones. He watched the dancing flames of fire elementals, and discovered their heat rose above the limitation of their hitbox. He looked deep into the eyes of a stone golem and saw that they were prisms. They split the blue glow of the golem’s magical core into a frigid winter sunset, whites and blues dancing and concealing a secret whisper of deep red.
I don’t think I ever really looked at the models before, he thought. Even now he couldn’t recall any specific details of any monster he had fought. They were all colored blurs in his mind, faceless values and blocks of information.
Despite his immortality, he still froze in fear when his spell illuminated a colossus of steel tucked away in a corner of the room. It was a broad suit of cold iron armor, bereft of adornment and pockmarked with the careless ministrations of a thousand hammers beating the metal into shape. In one clenched fist it carried a wicked looking cleaver, one that belonged in a giant’s butcher shop, used to crack the toughest dragon bones and partition the choicest bits.
Guspy had never seen or heard of this creature in his life.
You must not have made it into the final game. At least not yet, thought Guspy. Despite its beastly ugliness, Guspy felt a pang of remorse. Someone worked to design every aspect of this monstrosity to evoke the feelings of fear and disgust, and they had been very successful. But it had gone unused and unseen since the game’s inception.
I remember the Christmas ornament I made in middle school. A Christmas light made to look like a reindeer, googly eyes and fuzzy brown pipe cleaners for antlers. I was so proud. But when Christmas came, they didn’t want to put it on the tree. They thought it looked too silly.
Guspy left a gold coin at its feet, alms for unsung effort.
He was preparing to depart when he noticed an unadorned chest had appeared beneath the presumptive sign. Guspy was certain it hadn’t been there before. He approached, circling the chest, before reaching out and lightly tapping it. He may invulnerable, but this was a developer’s world. Who knows what treachery could hide here? He lifted the lid, tilting his head and peeking at its contents with one eye shut. Inside was a billiard sized ball of translucent glass. Guspy recognized a Title Sphere. These rare items would grant a moniker to the character’s name. It was a single use item worth tens of thousands of gold. Too curious to resist learning what it would bestow, he shattered the sphere in his palm. Red dust flowed between his fingers like Martian sand. His name had changed from Guspy to Guspy the Wanderer.
Guspy used his next scroll and teleported to the shipwreck of the Soothsayers Doom. A brig suspended above the ocean on a monstrous coral bed, the ship itself was a mid-level dungeon. Players could fight their way from deck to deck, battling undead crewmen that fired grapeshot salvos into crowded rooms, shredding players into bloody clouds. The Captain was the boss of the dungeon, and part of his loot was a map that would send players on a quest line that eventually led players to the halls of the merfolk king, an extremely high-level dungeon at the bottom of the ocean.
Being immortal, Guspy took what players called the ‘express route’, swimming directly downward from the open sea. It was suicide. Besides suffocation, players had to contend with titanic carcharodons, giant squid, invisible water elementals, and elite merfolk guard. These creatures had mastery of the terrain, and few players were accustomed to attacks that could come from any direction.
Beneath him, the phosphorescent glow of the Coral Castle overpowered the distant sun for dominion of the depths. Guspy slipped into a castle window, ignoring the tridents of the pursuing Knights of Pearl. The Castle was a dungeon that needed to be completed quickly, lest the player’s water breathing magic wear off. That made it the perfect sight-seeing location for someone who didn’t need to breathe. Guspy examined the meticulously decorated royal bedrooms. The books in Loria were filled with open source stories from the real world. Players spent hours in this fantasy world engrossed in the prose of Tom Sawyer and Paradise Lost. But yellowed letters fell from between the pages like autumn leaves.
Never whole without you, my beloved Jennifer,
B.C.
Guspy didn’t know the merfolk princess even had a name. Neither had he any idea who B.C was, or if these pages were part of some fetch quest he had never come across.
Deeper in the palace he found the throne room of the merfolk king. The king was gigantic, of course, all raid bosses were. The king was also an enemy that demanded constant focus and attention to defeat. He cycled seamlessly through attack patterns, buffs, and stage activations. Missing the tell-tale signs would leave you a step behind the dance and doomed to failure.
Guspy now had a unique opportunity. He ignored the king completely. The throne room was heaped with chests of gold and artifacts plundered from sunken ships. But they were only decorative, ersatz décor designed to regale the room with the trappings of wealth and luxury. Being worthless, players ignored them. Guspy took the time to closely inspect the mountains of coins and bejeweled quillions that rose from the coin piles. Ignoring the world-shaking bolts of lightning, magical rays, and great sweeps of the merfolk king’s trident, he crouched to the level of a single coin.
There, in the face of the coin, were three smiling children. The normal relief of Empress Aubrianna, a mythical figure in Origin’s history, was replaced with a picture of a family. The normal Latin phrase, “A solis ortu usque ad occasum”, had been replaced with, “Jason, Melody, Brock”. He moved from one coin to the next. Families, pets, and selfies looked back at him. Some had names written, others messages, “Thx Mel, my rock <3” “Joe & Cara 4 eva” “We did it!”
Guspy wondered if any player had ever seen these. Maybe, but he hadn’t, and that made it special to him. He wondered what he would put on his own coin. Me, Collins, and Becca at the beach, he thought. A picture that had been his desktop background for years. The only evidence of a perfect day.
Having taken his fill of the throne room, Guspy pulled out another scroll and teleported away.
Hogglerock dungeon was an aberration. Most dungeons tried to evoke a sense of awe or fear, but Hogglerock was just gross. Its entrance was at the center of a mud-smothered swamp. Poisonous insects and carnivorous slugs roamed the wastes searching for carrion to strip or making their own if none could be found.
To descend into the putrid depths of Hogglerock, you entered the mouth of a great saurian beast. It was long since dead, its flesh in a perpetual state of decay. Down its mucus-caked throat, you entered a dungeon that had been created from the offal that remained of its digestive system. Noxious acid pools, monstrous parasites, and bloated scavengers challenged players that came to plunder the carcass.
Guspy had to stop and think before entering the sixth stomach of the beast. He had no idea if his plan would work, or even made sense. Guspy removed all his armor and weapons, save for the Belt of Endurance. He entered the dungeon’s final room, aggroing a great bipedal minotaur and its bovine kin. Guspy sat and crossed his legs. He closed his eyes and focused on slowing his breath and his heart. Aggro in Loria was based on a series of factors: proximity, source of damage or debuff, equipment levels, class, movement, and supposedly even biometric data the VR rig was able to obtain.
The monsters were instantly aggroed when the rubbery sphincter of the sixth stomach was touched, converging on their only target. Guspy’s lack of equipment, aggression, and stillness would reduce his aggro over time. He waited and he watched. In time the monsters lost interest, ceasing their attacks and wandering back to their starting positions. Guspy continued to watch. For a time, they only bobbed in place, replaying idle animations and howling blistering war cries. But, in time, Guspy saw a strange behavior begin. One smaller minotaur creature pulled out a hunk of meat, clutching it by the pure white protruding bone. It chomped a piece and munched in contentment, eyes closed in blissful indulgence. The giant boss minotaur began to sniff the air, and a game of keep away began. The smaller minotaurs tossed the meat between themselves as the boss zeroed in on the source of the smell.
Who is this for? wondered Guspy. Who was meant to see this? And how? Why hide it? How many monsters of Loria Online had these little secrets? Tiny moments of humor buried in terabytes of code, only visible in a state of extreme passivity. Once the capering script had completed, the bovines returned to their normal places and continued to cycle basic idle motions.
It’s for me. Since I’m the one watching it, that means it’s for me, thought Guspy.
Guspy pulled out his final scroll, completing the spell just before he was beset again.
Guspy the Wanderer appeared back in Pokate City. His new title drew lingering looks from other players who searched their memories. Guspy’s time was running low, and fatigue massaged his mind and eyes. There was more he could search for. He could run down the hours until the mod logged back on and set things to rights. But he didn’t want the last moments of such an enlightening day to be a race against the clock. It would spoil the sense of calm and contemplation he had cultivated. Instead he sat down next to a beggar and composed a message to Collins.
“I won’t be joining you today, Collins, but I’ve got so much to tell you about when I do.”
He had seen beyond the veil. He witnessed tiny miracles of creation hidden from mortal sight. Sparks of love that flickered once more when observed. For a precious few hours, he was blessed with a peace that allowed him to fall in love with the game all over again, to appreciate its creation like a benevolent god.
Collins and Guspy returned to the red rock canyon. Guspy admired the visible strata of the walls. Simulated eons left perfect layers of color stacked like the pages of a book. Little details, so insignificant yet so engrossing. He appreciated the work that went into this game. The efforts of artists always caught his notice.

Yikes.
This is dramatic, I know. I have been single for over 4 years. I'm almost 97% sure my ex bf was talking to other women online, possibly flirting and other things. Anways, I talked to guys off dating apps and even got my first number last weekend. Thought I hit the jackpot of meeting all sorts of men, and when I got the number I felt like "oh hey, maybe you arent as bad as you make it seem" never once has this guy given me a compliment, he told me I was "nice". He was drunk when he got my number, so the thought stands. Maybe he found me attractive when he initially met me, but then had second thoughts when he met me for a date when he wasn't drunk like I looked better when he was drunk. I still found him insanely attractive when i met him. He was "surprised" I had met him go to lunch. He said how the other females he met were flakey. He did pay for me, and we have been texting but yesterday I didn't hear from him. And whenever I do hear from him, it's hours and hours apart.
I've been talking to a few other guys whom the distance is far enough away that they don't want to travel that far. I asked a guy to get food, and he said, "I would, but the distance is too much," so why continue talking to me?
It hurts because I've seen men travel hours every weekend to see their significant other. My brother drives 2 hours to see his girlfriend every Wednesday and weekend.
When I went on that "date" I complimented him (not too much, just gave him compliments) and I know people are weird sometimes about compliments but I feel like if he was interested he would've said "you look amazing".
I sometimes feel that if I lost weight, I wouldn't have to deal with this. It really sucks, and knowing you're good enough to send selfies to or for a limited amount of time to chat or for sex, but to want a relationship with me is Ludacris. I am about ready to give up. It's gotten to the point where I don't believe in love, I actually never did, but I had carried hope there for a while.
It really seems like no one else around me has any issues besides me and the plus-size women. It leads me to believe men don't like bigger women as much as they claim. I just never seen it.

I left a long-term friendship with someone I considered my best friend for nearly 10 years today. But now, I don't know how I feel cutting her off like this, I'm just in a really weird limbo, but it feels like a constant buzzing stopped in my head as soon as I did it; I don't feel so anxious or heavy anymore. This was the hardest lesson I've learned but I'm so happy I no longer feel like I'm going in circles anymore. I'm sorry for how long this is. I'm also sorry for any errors, I haven't slept before writing this.
(A little context) After high school, we separated for nearly 2-3 years around the time we graduated and went to college. We both found different friend groups and just drifted a part as we were always involved with different clubs, sports, etc. We came back to each other after our 1st year in college and it was as if we never stopped talking. We called eachother all the time, we motivated each other in our classes, talked about the things we went through which both of us faced similar trauma in our relationships when we were a part so we were always there for each other for that, having heart to hearts, talking about our dreams and how we wanted to continue our lives. She uplifted me, showed up for me, and we were able to handle issues with each other fairly well.
The issues mainly happened when I changed my name (it was my grandmother's choice and I wanted to have something symbolic for myself) she refused to call me by it even though I told her it was formally used in university, all my other friends called me it, etc., just because she knew me for so long and felt that it would be too difficult to switch over (even though another mutual friend who knew me just as long called me by my preferred name). She would no longer let me play music in her car as the songs she said she liked, she suddenly didn't like. When I chose to change my major to creative writing and art, she told me I'd never make enough to support myself, that I wouldn't be able to go to grad school outside of the U.S. as my future career wouldn't allow me to afford flights to see my family. She would tell me that I was incapable of understanding her major (accounting) and when I asked for help on hw questions for stats, she'd talk to me if I was a child, talking over me when I tried asking questions. When I got my poems published she briefly congratulated me on a phone call which then turned into a 3 hour discussion about herself.
The biggest red flag that stuck out to me was how long I'd sit on the phone listening to her talk about herself--she vented all the time about her problems with coworkers, she'd talk about how she'd refuse to help anyone in the class because she was smarter then them and that they always asked dumb questions, and then she started only talking about her accomplishments, how great her grades were, how quick she finished exams, how she's going to make so much money, and so on. Her mom started to get involved as well and any chance that she got to tell me that I wouldn't do anything sustainable with my majors or wouldn't make enough, she did while my friend laughed or stayed silent on the phone. She'd take those personality quizzes online and report back to me that she scored high for sociopathy and "bragged" about it.
I realized that she'd only ask me questions about myself as an opportunity to talk about herself if the conversation went quiet. She struggled to give me any sincere compliments and most of them ended with "but." However, she was there when I needed someone, and those times were the only time attention would be given to me, but then she'd eventually share all the sensitive private things I shared with her family, her new friends, and mutuals without asking. Every single future plan she had involved me somewhere being with her, if she wanted to go to law school, I suddenly wanted to go. If she wanted to live in Washington, we would be in the same house. And then, pieces of my identity, my style, interests, and hobbies were becoming replicated. She'd start to embarrass me in front of our mutuals, bringing up the darkest, lowest parts of my life as a joke, such as "Do you remember when that happened?" and the conversation would always grow awkward. When a new friend (a mutual's new girlfriend) joined the group and all we hung out together, she kept talking about how our mutual and I had a fling (3 years ago), but of course camoflauging it with humor.
She'd switch up, always. In our friend groups she'd turn into this sickly sweet person, paying for everyone's dinner, and with out mutual and his girlfriend, she'd latch onto her, saying how much she loved her and that'd she (jokingly) steal her from him. Sure she'd do nice things when it was just us like paying for dinner, but outside of that? I never experienced how she was with others.
The weirdest thing she did was when she'd pretend that the figure's hands/feet I drew from in my class were hers to a guy (her family friend) who I was talking to. If he complimented them, she'd message them saying that he was basically complimenting her, and when I confronted her about it, she would say, "I know it's not mine, I just want to be humbled." He would stand up for me usually, saying how he loved my artwork, but she'd never say anything to me about my drawings. The only one she "complimented" she ended up focusing on how it wasn't proportional.
The most recent thing is that she started to "psychoanalyze" me, projecting a whole bunch of negative assumptions about my behavior that weren't true and that I knew weren't true as I was working closely with a therapist during this time (which she knew about) and was starting to better myself, change old habits, etc. Wanting to pick up the guitar meant that I was evading all the problems in my life. Telling her that I was no longer interested in a guy, meant that I idealized him and that she was right about it. But if i tried to give her advice when she was upset? I was projecting onto her, and she'd never try to hear me out, just talk over me and tell me to calm down. She started to mess with my memory of events and her behavior, convincing me that I said something I didn't, changing up narratives, etc.
I know I can be outspoken when I need to be. I've had to stand up for myself many times, but I still struggle with setting boundaries with people I love or people I've known for a long time. I was also scared to lose her because I left a previous friend group that was no longer good for me, and I was like, oh god, I'm going to be all alone now. Most importantly, losing her meant that this was real, that what I thought was okay, was the complete opposite, and I didn't want to view my friend in that light as she faced a lot of trauma too, but I was losing myself so quickly, losing interest in all the things I loved, dimming myself down, dreaming smaller, becoming smaller. I knew it wasn't worth it to stay as my mental health was spiraling. I've lost myself before and I didn't want to ever go there again.
I got fed up with feeling so anxious around her, not knowing the type of friend I'd get. Would I be treated like a punching bag one day, a therapist the next, an expected, devoted, #1 fan in the middle, or would I get lucky, and she'd treat me like a human being for a night? It was such a vicious cycle, and I thought I was crazy or being overdramatic. I was scared to confront her about it because she's reactive and hostile when confronted or she'd end up icing me out. While handling issues at home and in my personal life, I just didn't have the energy to say anything when I knew what the outcome would most likely be. I am still mad at myself for handing my power over like that even though I know it wasn't that simple.
I started to do research, and one article led to the next, and I then started to see our past 2 years of friendship in every red flag of narcissism I read. Past conversations would replay, all what I was feeling was becoming validated, and I realized that I was becoming less and less me, I was just becoming a hollowed-out vessel of what I used to be. I didn't want to label her as a full blown narc and yes, maybe I can't be for sure, but I knew that there were qualities about her that just made everything make sense. It was like the whisper I had inside was growing louder, sort of like saying, "See? I told you so."
I slowly started to distance myself but her phone calls grew incessant, she'd start to become sweet, attentive, and kind, and of course, I eventually started to give in to answering. I'd try to limit what I said to her, attempted to grey rock, and it started to work, but I was still losing myself and my identity. I wanted to be able to be myself, share about the things I was working on, the highlights of my day...it sucked, I just wanted a friend, a real friend. We spent nearly ten years together, became adults together, had our first heartbreaks together, got through the most turbulent events together, but I knew I had to stand up on my two feet, hold my hand, and get out of this.
I kept researching, watching videos and started to get the confidence to leave, placing more accountability on her instead of empathizing so much for her that I was abandoning myself. I just kept telling myself, "You've stood up for yourself before, you can do it again."
So I wrote her a long letter that took me a few days to complete. I explained my feelings, gave examples of her behavior, listed my priorities and expectations and told her that I wasn't going to expend energy into telling her that putting me down, not supporting me, and revealing my private info on a whim, was something I wasn't going to teach her how not to do, that we've been friends this long and I expected more from her. I did show her some love for the things I admired about her but ended the letter with the notice that I wouldn't be contributing to the friendship anymore and that I was going to come first.
I felt guilty since there wasn't a "hint" about me ending the friendship other than making up excuses to avoid hanging out, not answering the phone, or only talking for a few minutes as opposed to 3-4 hours, etc., I still felt like maybe I should have talked to her first, that maybe she truly is unaware, and maybe that's true, but still, I may have messed up throughout our friendship, said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing, acted impulsively, and took parts of our friendship for granted, I didn't dedicate my time in doing what she did to me. I put my effort in changing so I wouldn't repeat my behavior so we could continue our friendship. I don't know, regardless, I know that this was a lesson for me to learn how to communicate sooner and actively set boundaries rather than waiting until the last minute--I have a lot to work on but this was a wake-up call. Once I made up my mind that this was something I didn't want to fix and that I felt more comfortable with saying what I needed, I knew that this was the best option.
So, I sent her the letter today, blocked her on everything, Spotify included, blocked our mutuals which they're moving out of state in two months anyways, ate a croissant, and now I'm here, writing all of this out.
At first I felt so guilty, anxious, and it broke my heart when I realized that she wasn't who I thought she was, that she could never be the person I wanted. She told me she had abandonment issues once and I felt like I was abandoning her ruthlessly, but I felt that she "abandoned" me by not treating me like a person anymore. I love and care for her, but was she truly a best friend? I'm starting to believe that she wasn't and that maybe at one point she was, but I know who we were in high school and when we first came back together is long gone now.
I'm sorry for this being a novel, I had a lot to get out of my system. Now that its been a few hours since I've sent the letter, It feels nice, I'm still sad and guilty over it, but it feels like theres a vacancy, not a bad one, but one that I can actually breathe in, an oxygen bubble, an open-floor plan instead of feeling like I was in a blank, cramped room with no door.
I really only have my mom now, but she's happy that I left and I'm greatful that I have her. I feel hopeful for once, that I can open myself up to new people without feeling like I was completely occupied, that I now have the energy to do so, and that she isn't the last person on Earth, I'll find others who I can share myself with and build a friendship with that will support and uplift me--I'll find the reciprocity that I've been aching for.
I still love her and I do wish the best for her and I wish I could have been by her side to see us grow together, but it has to be like this and I know its not only what's best, it's necessary if I want to do the things I want to do. Got to keep walking.

GO Battle League Season 15 is upon us, and along with it, our now-customary move rebalance! What's new, what's improved, what's good, bad, or ugly coming out the other side? Let's dive right in and see!
As per usual, Niantic has made us wait until the 11th hour for information on this coming season. (Thanks, Niantic... love you too! 😝) As is NOT usual for them of late, the rebalance taking place at the start of this new GBL season is massive, with no less than thirty three Pokémon being directly affected. Needless to say, this is going to be a lengthy analysis, so let's just dive right into it, shall we?
A FAIR WIND, OR GALE FORCE WINDS? It might seem odd to lead off with a move given to only two new recipients, but CLEFABLE is no ordinary recipient. It has faded further and further into obscurity over time as other Fairies have risen up around it, having dropped out of the Top 5 Fairies in Ultra League and almost out of the Top 10 in Great League. It's still decently bulky, and still comes with the awesome Meteor Mash, which is not only cheaper than most charge moves found on various Charmers (that don't rhyme with "Aloe Van Pine Nails"), but is very widely unresisted and, critically in themed Cups where Clefable is eligible, super effective versus fellow Fairies, often delivering a knockout blow. The problem, of course, is that like other Charmers, you're unlikely to reach it in multiples, since Charm only generates a way below average 2.0 Energy Per Turn (EPT), tied for worst energy generation in the game. It also has Psychic for coverage, or Moonblast for big STAB damage, but the likelihood of reaching any of those in a critical spot is rather low since Charm is just SO slow to get there. So it has sat, languishing, as other interesting Charmers have come along and is now, at best, just part of a growing pack of similiar Pokémon.
That ALL changes with the addition of Fairy Wind and its 4.5 EPT. Not only does this allow it to finally break away from the pack and make its own unique mark, but it works REALLY well with its moves. Spamming a Meteor Mash every 6 seconds (or thanks to carryover energy, just 5 seconds between the second and third Mash) sounds pretty good to me! And indeed, as compared to Charm, you can see immediate improvement in Great League, with new wins against Noctowl (!!!), Azumarill, Froslass, Diggersby, Alolan Ninetales, and somehow even Fairy slayer Shadow Victreebel by slamming it with two Meteor Mashes. Even after all that, though, it remains underwater overall as far as win/loss record goes, though beating Medicham and Noctowl and all else that you'd expect of a good Fairy give it some great corebreaking potential.
For the eye-popping numbers, we actually turn to Ultra League, where Clef turns from this into this. Yes, that IS more than double its former win total (and a jump from under 30% winrate to now 60%!), with those new wins coming versus Walrein, A-Ninetales, Sylveon, Aurorus, Cobalion, Dubwool, Snorlax, Drapion, DDeoxys, and even resists-all-of-Clefable's-moves Escavalier! And if its relatively high XL cost is scaring you, fear not... you can build a hundo to 2499 CP and miss out only on Walrein and Greedent, for what that's worth. Put simply, Clefable is one of the biggest winners in this rebalance, moving from a previous rank of #145 in Open UL all the way up now to #28, with Tapu Fini being the only Fairy ranked higher!
More of a footnote is TOGETIC, which now also learns Fairy Wind, and boy did it need that. Previously having to rely on the mostly awful Hidden Power (in which case you usually had to hope to get lucky with Flying type H.P.) or the subpar Extrasensory, it was left looking quite pitiful. But now, at least it could be spice in the right meta, maybe.
WIGGLYTUFF did not get Fairy Wind, but it is receiving Disarming Voice, a move I've been wishing would be more widely distributed for years. A Fairy-type clone of moves like Psyshock, Magnet Bomb, and Foul Play, it's a more-than-passable move, and quietly the cheapest one that Fairy has available...15 less energy than Play Rough and Moonblast, and better Damage Per Energy {DPE} than the former. Anyway, seeing as Wigglytuff currently relies on Play Rough, Voice likely now slots in as its replacement for a little more shield pressure and new wins like Azumarill and Lickitung. The needle doesn't move too much, but the improvement is still appreciated!
PRIMARINA also gets Voice, but it doesn't really help it... yet. Prima IS a little underrated in Master League, where its Water typing is much more help (resisting Ice, Fire, Water) than hindrance (very little Grass and Electric around to exploit it). But it won't really take off until it also eventually gets Hydro Cannon... sometime in 2025? At that point, it will appreciate having cheap Disarming Voice alongside Cannon more, I think.
LONG STORY SHORT, Fairy Wind Clefable is one of those rather rare overnight sensations that could see an immediate usage spike in Ultra League and as a nice corebreaker in Great League (the pickup against Noctowl really pushing it over the top). It really appreciates the extra energy to spam charge moves, and has just enough variety between Meteor Mash, Psychic (the move!), and Moonblast to keep the opponent guessing and shielding when they really don't want to. The other Fairies with new toys (Togetic and Wigglytuff especially) appreciate small bumps in performance, but are unlikely to suddenly appear where they weren't already.
DRILL RUNNIN' 🔥 As with Fairy Wind, there are only two new recipients of Drill Run, but both are very interesting.
We'll start with ALOLAN SANDSLASH. It sees some play already in both Great (including the Shadow variant and Ultra Leagues, usually with former Community Day move Shadow Claw to give it a unique profile, and spammy Ice Punch and typically Bulldoze for coverage. Bulldoze has excellent coverage (primarily versus Rocks, Steels, and Fires that give A-Slash a lot of trouble otherwise), but isn't a very good move (60 energy for only 80 damage). Drill Run is a strict upgrade, dealing the same 80 Ground-type damage for only 45 energy, a big savings.
Looking simply at simulation numbers, Drill Run doesn't seem to be a great improvement in Great or Ultra, with just occasional new wins popping up like UL Scizor or GL Alolan Marowak in certain shielding scenarios. But this goes beyond the numbers. Those who already use and love A-Slash will greatly appreciate the extra pressure that comes with Drill Run, as it can now be sprung for just 5 more energy than Ice Punch, making each shielding decision that much sweatier for the opponent. Even without STAB, Drill Run still deals quite a bit more damage than Ice Punch versus neutral targets, so this isn't just for strict coverage either. In every way, this makes Alolan Sandslash better, and better at covering its backside. I think players that don't already use A-Slash may come to better appreciate and respect it now too, and perhaps not just in Limited metas!
Perhaps even more interesting (and, frankly, unexpected) is DEWGONG, the poor WateIce type that has NEVER had a move rebalance other than taking its two best moves (Ice Shard and Icy Wind) away. Niantic has finally given it a LOT of love in this update, with Drill Run providing new coverage, and new move Liquidation finally giving it a viable Water move too. (Water Pulse and Aqua Jet are both terrible, folks... so much so that I've always recommended Blizzard as Dewgong's second move. For example, did you know that it tends to lose to Alolan Marowak with super effective Pulse but actually wins with resisted Blizzard?!) Anyway, I do think you want to definitely keep Icy Wind, so then your choice becomes Drill Run to have a shot at things like Froslass, Toxicroak, Lanturn (with Water Gun), and the aforementioned Alolan Marowak, or Liquidation to better outrace Skarmory and Alolan Ninetales? Either way, you get things like Azumarill and Dunsparce now, and still beat things that don't show in those sims like Swampert and Sableye by remaining fully commited to Icy Wind spam. And while you don't see a lot of new Rock or Steel or Fire wins popping up, Drill Run especially gives them all serious pause, forcing them to shield where they really never had to worry about it much before. (Because, again, Water Pulse is awful.)
So not really a great case for Liquidation here, but this is at least a way to transition into covering that move more fully next!
LONG STORY SHORT, both Dewgong and Alolan Sandslash immediately get better (and get better coverage) with Drill Run in the mix. I think it will be their preferred secondary/closing move going forward, and both will see a bump in play.
LIQUIDATION... GOING OUT OF BUSINESS ALREADY? So about that new move Liquidation. It's a good if not fantastic move, an exact clone of Crunch... same cost (45 energy), damage (70), and potential debuff (30% chance to reduce the opponent's Defense). Not game breaking, but very, very solid.
But the real question is... do any of the things that recieve it really want it, and if so, do any of them notably improve in PvP?
I'm gonna save you some time (and me some characters!) by immediately pushing many of its recipients right off the raft.
I think CLOYSTER actually prefers to hold on to a big closer like Hydro Pump rather than Liquidation, preferring to soften things up with Icy Wind and then go in for the kill. Pass.
Similarly, all of the following prefer to keep existing movesets: SAMUROTT (Hydro Cannon/Megahorn), CARRACOSTA (Body Slam/Surf), BEARTIC (Ice Punch/Aqua Tail), EELEKTROSS (Dragon Claw/Crunch). All remain fringe at best.
VAPOREON basically views Liquidation as a sidegrade to existing Scald, though Liquidation is NOT Legacy as Scald is, so it's worth it for any Vapes that don't have its old Community Day move. But Vaporeon remains mostly on the outside looking in at better Water types in various Leagues. No real boost here.
GOLDUCK sees a slight bump with Liquidation, but remains just a spice play, at best.
There is a reason you have never seen FLOATZEL in PvP... it has terrible charge moves. Bad, bad moves like Swift and Aqua Jet, with Hydro Pump as a passable closer but stymied due to average-at-best energy gains from Water Gun or Waterfall. Liquidation is in some ways just what the doctor ordered, but uh... Floatzel still sinks in PvP.
ARMALDO remains a lost cause as well. If you want a GOOD Rocky Bug, use Crustle. If you want a spice one, go with the new Kleavor. If you want to just tank your ELO, THEN maybe consider Armaldo. That's about it though, even with the new move.
Man, quite a bummer, right? Decent move, but really nothing that gets it stands to benefit in a way that will impact PvP. So moving on then to... wait, what? I missed one? Oh... OH! So I did. And thankfully, we can end this section on a good note... because GOLISOPOD just became a bit more interesting.
Remember that when it was first released, it was a completely lost cause, with Fury Cutter, Metal Claw, and Waterfall as its clumsy fast moves, and underwhelming X-Scissor, **Aerial Ace, and somehow even worse Aqua Jet as its only charge moves. That left it in a very sad state. Eventually, it acquired Shadow Claw, which made it at least slightly interesting. And now comes the charge move it's been begging for, with Liquidation elevating it into spice territory, at the very least. Now you can potentially beat things like Charizard, Nidoqueen, Alolan Sandslash, Alolan Ninetales (Powder Snow), Talonflame, Cobalion, and Sylveon that you couldn't before, though even as bad as Aerial Ace is, giving it up means you generally now lose some Grasses like Venusaur and Virizion. Still though, things are looking up for Golisopod!
LONG STORY SHORT, while Liquidation is actually a nice addition to Water's arsenal (a clone of Crunch, including the debuff chance), the only thing that gets it initially that really looks to benefit is Golisopod. Stay tuned to what may get it down the road, though... most of its current recipients just have more problems than Liquidation alone can solve.
THE LEAF AGE BEGINS? Probably haven't seen Bullet Punch in PvP much, have you? Scizor and Metagross use it, and uh... that's about the extent of it. But it's actually a pretty good PvP fast move, with the average 3.0 Damage Per Turn (DPT) but above average energy generation (3.5 EPT). And now here comes Leafage, an exact clone of Bullet Punch for the Grass typing. The number of things that get it is quite a bit smaller than Liquidation (only three evolutionary lines), but I think this is a clear case of quality over quantity in Leafage's favor.
I could write an entire article on the injustices done to DECIDUEYE in Pokémon GO. All its interesting moves in MSG, and here it sits with underpowered Shadow Sneak, overpriced Energy Ball, and big but risky closer Brave Bird, and all locked behind low-energy Razor Leaf or arguably worst fast move in the game Astonish. #JusticeForDecidueye! While I do still hope for an eventual and LONG overdue buff to Astonish, for now the addition of Leafage should be a big help, right? Weeeeeeeell..... I mean, yes, it is most certainly better, and will become even a bit moreso when it eventually gets Frenzy Plant. But clearly, it's problems are not JUST the fast moves. Heck, pre-evolution DARTRIX (who has also been trapped behind Razor Leaf) even looks better than Deci in the here and now, thanks in large part to having Seed Bomb as a more workable second charge move to set up Brave Bird. It does seem that even though ROWLETT also gets Leafage, it may still prefer to keep existing Razor Leaf down in Little League, where Razor Leaf can admittedly be particularly dominant.
LURANTIS (and Little League pre-evolution FOMANTIS) operates nicely right now as sort of a Jack of all trades with Fury Cutter (and its Bug damage output) powering up Leaf Blade and Superpower (well, Grass Knot in Fomantis' case). Superpower allows for some nutty wins like Bastiodon, Galarian Stunfisk, and excecuted properly, even Registeel, clearly showing Lurantis' appeal. So does Leafage help or disrupt the good Lurantis has already got going? Eh, I think we're gonna call it a sidegrade, though a tasty one for sure. Lurantis does give up a couple things where the effectiveness of Fury Cutter wins the day (Cresselia, Shadow Victreebel) and loses a little speed, which flips Shadow Alolan Sandslash to a loss. (Luratnis cannot hit a Leaf Blade AND followon Superpower in time with Leafage like it can with Fury Cutter.) But Leafage is able to carve out new wins like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Pelipper with superior neutral fast move damage (as opposed to resisted Bug damage), and also can outrace Walrein far more reliably. So not an upgrade, but a nice sidegrade like this can add some disruption into appropriate metas just fine.
Speaking of disruption, let's check out ABOMASNOW. Obviously it runs more as an Ice than a Grass, humming along nicely in multiple metas with Powder Snow and Weather Ball (Ice) and Energy Ball for a big Grass closer when the situation calls for it. And more than likely, it will mostly continue in that configuration moving forward. BUT, Leafage may be preferred in certain metas now, at least, and not just because it now slams the door on Water types (instead of sometimes merely scraping by with Powder Snow). In Great League, where ShadowBama is usually preferred, Powder Snow continues to shine out, but it's worth noting that while Leafage is an overall downgrade, most of the wins it gives up are versus Flyers (Altaria, Noctowl, Skarmory, Mandibuzz), with new losses to Umbreon and Venusaur as the most notable exceptions. Leafage DOES make some new key contributions like Powder Alolan Ninetales and Galarian Stunfisk that may come more to the fore in Limited metas with, say, fewer Flyers? Just saying. In Ultra League, the biggest knock against Leafage is that it drops the Giratinas (as compared to Powder Snow), but otherwise Leafage makes a pretty strong case with pickups of Poliwrath, Walrein, and Alolan Ninetales (with Powder Snow OR Charm). I think Leafage deserves some real consideration at Ultra League level!
LONG STORY SHORT, no huge improvements to be found with Leafage, but it does earn a rightful place as a robust sidegrade consideration for the Lurantis and Abomasnow lines (particularly with Ultra League Aboma). It's an upgrade for the Rowlett/Dartrix/Decidueye line, though Deci itself remains middling at best until it one day gets Frenzy Plant (or just some more synergistic charge moves in general!). Leafage SHOULD start popping up here and there in PvP soon, moreso than Liquidation likely will.
JUST A BRUSH FIRE, REALLY Honestly, I expected a number of things to get Mystical Fire after it recently entered the game, but for now, Niantic chose to distribute it to only two new Pokémon:
As I mentioned in my analysis on Mystical Fire back during Delphox Community Day, DRIFBLIM is an intriguing choice. Mystical Fire and existing Blim coverage move Icy Wind share the same stats aside from typing, so this is almost the very definition of sidegrade... against neutral targets they do the exact same thing, so it just comes down to effectiveness. If Blim is facing something burnable (like a Steel, Ice, or Bug type), it will prefer to have Mystical Fire. For things weak to Ice, like Flyers and Dragons and Grounds, obviously it will want to be packing Icy Wind instead. (Grasses are weak to both Fire and Ice, so usually no change there, aside from things like Abomasnow with a subtyping that favors one or the other... in that case, Mystical Fire is double super effective and Icy Wind is merely neutral.) I'm not going to bother with the sims, as they're close to indistinguishable at a high level, but I WILL note that Mystical Fire can potentially beat Galarian Stunfisk at Ultra League level, and more definitely beats G-Fisk AND A-Slash, Skarmory, and even Registeel at Great League level, none of which Icy Wind can realistically hope to replicate. (Its only standouts are things like Gliscor.) Yes, giving up Icy Wind means completely abandoning hope versus things like Ghost-resistant Pidgeot and especially Noctowl, but overall? I think Drifblim might be getting much hotter soon, in several senses of the word! 🔥
Not nearly as exciting, I admit, but note that LITWICK also gets Mystical Fire. It's really only for Little League use, and has been an interesting but lesser-used Fire type, falling behind things like Vulpix, Growlithe, and Tepig thanks to them having some good neutral coverage, while Litwick has been stuck with just Flame Charge and two other rather Fire charge moves. Mystical Fire slots in as a nearly straight upgrade with pickups that include Wynaut, Vullaby, Obstagoon (for LL Cups where it's allowed), and... Vulpix, regardless of which fast move 'Pix is using. Something to look forward to in the next Little League rotation!
LONG STORY SHORT, Mystical Fire IS likely the default coverage move of choice for Drifblim going forward, just because of the number of burnable things (as opposed to freezeable things) in its respective metas, Great League especially. Except to see Blim soar up a little higher than it has in a while. It's also a nice upgrade for Litwick, who should finally emerge as a true Fire contender in Little League formats.
ODDS AND ENDS Going to put everything else together in this last main section, but don't mistake that to mean they're less important... quite the contrary! Just doing this because these are all one-offs, as opposed to the changes above which directly affected multiple Pokémon recipients.
Before I dive into the specific move additions, let's briefly review the existing moves that are being buffed or nerfed in this update.
Icicle Spear - 60 power → 65 power. Obviously this only affects WALREIN (for now), and is obviously a strict upgrade, since the cost and all else remains the same, just more damage. Specifically, at a high level, I see Walrein picking up things like Skarmory and Umbreon (non-Shadow) and Trevenant, Pelipper, and Azumarill (Shadow) in Great League, and stuff like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Virizion in Ultra League. So yeah... you didn't need me to tell you this was an improvement, but maybe that helps you decide how much of an improvement and whether you want to turn back to Wally if you ever turned away before. I'd say Great League in particular has reason to fear it a bit more again.
Poison Fang - 40 power → 45 power. More things affected by this than Icicle Spear, but obviously most of you just want to know about NIDOQUEEN, so in the interest of time and... well, interest, we'll just highlight her for now. Again, you don't need me to tell you this only makes things with Poison Fang better, but HOW much better? Honestly not too much changes in Great League (as far as straight wins a losses go, though this is undoubtedly scarier now!), but in Ultra League, I see new wins for Queen versus things like Charizard, Pidgeot, Cresselia, Dubwool, Obstagoon, AND Guzzlord, among others, so this is no small tweak! Might Nidoqueen be "back"? Only time will tell. Admittedly, what made it SO scary in the past was the cheaper cost of Poison Fang, and that hasn't changed, so I don't see it returning to full dominance like she once enjoyed. I also think she was treated rather harshly even before this buff... she didn't fall off quite as hard as many made it out to be. This will reveal that more fully... she's not so much "back" as much as I think she never really left. Also keep in mind things like GOLBAT/CROBAT and SALAZZLE/SALANDIT** that stand to benefit from this as well!
Rollout - 4 power → 5 power. So low power that I can tell you this won't be a big shift, but obviously it DOES help. DUNSPARCE picks up a potential win over Shadow Alolan Ninetales (hey, Rollout is super effective, so....), and MILTANK a new win versus Shadow Swampert, of all things, and sometimes (Water Gun) Lanturn when utilizing Ice Beam instead of my personal recommendation of Thunderbolt (which beats Lanturn as well). It tends to prefer Tackle in Ultra League, though newly buffed Rollout is MUCH improved now with new wins versus Cresselia, Drapion, Umbreon, Alolan Muk, AND Walrein. Perhaps Tackle won't be the default now? As for ALOLAN GOLEM, Volt Switch just remains a much better move in nearly every scenario and meta. Stick with that, I say, and get all the Rock damage you need from the charge moves instead. 🪨
Mud Bomb - 55 power → 60 power. The two big ones that come to mind are TOXICROAK and WHISCASH, the latter of which honestly needed a boost like this. However, this small a bump looks and feels like more of a "win more" where they already won more than anything. The only notable new win I see (at the high level this massive rebalance is demanding of little old me!) is Toxicroak versus Trevenant, though I think that's more due to Trevenant's nerf (which we'll get to in a moment) than Toxicroak's resisted Mud Bomb dealing a tiny bit more damage. (And upon further review, it may be neither of those and instead just come down to move timing.. but leaving Trevor in here as it's a good setup for later.) The big winner here is actually QUAGSIRE, who FINALLY gets a charge move cheaper than 55 energy to reach the same spam potential as its fellow Mud Boys. It's hard to show how this improves things in simulations, as they actually tend to favor Earthquake in many situations (such as in 1v1 shielding, where Quake shows additional wins against things like Azu, Sable, Swampert, and Umbreon), but the difference is more obvious when you go 2v2 shielding, and the extra spam of Mud Bomb shows out with new wins that include Froslass, Jellicent, Toxicroak, Shadow Alolan Ninetales, and Shadow Walrein. I actually don't know if this will actually bump up Quagsire's useage or not, though it's shot up about 60 slots to #15 in PvPoke's rankings. Not sure if that will match reality, but I DO think it's time to see if you have a good PvP Quag to perhaps take out for a spin and see. It certainly has some exciting new potential it's never had before!
Seed Bomb - 55 power → 60 power, Energy Cost Increased. The only thing on this list that's not a straight upgrade, getting the same damage boost as Mud Bomb but increased cost to go with it... mostly, I feel, as a backdoor way to bring Trevenant down a bit. (And indeed, PvPoke has dropped Trev 25 slots from #10 to #35 in Ultra League, and down nearly 70 slots in Great League from Top 10 to outside the Top 70!) I certainly don't think Trevor will be going away -- it still breaks several cores across multiple Leagues -- but this is undoubtedly a hit. In Great League, it looks like it's now at a disadvantage against things it used to be able to beat like Walrein, Talonflame, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, and even Toxicroak. The hit is a bit less severe in Ultra League (where it can hang in longer to somewhat compensate for the increased energy needed), but it does still lose former wins like Jellicent and the re-buffed Nidoqueen. Most of the rest of the collateral damage will be felt in Little League, where several notable things have Seed Bomb (like Bulbasaur, Exeggcute, Oddish, etc.). Note much of note in bigger Leagues, though it IS noteworthy that WHIMSICOTT is getting Seed Bomb for the first time. And yes, I think it DOES become the favorite in most circumstances over existing Grass Knot, despite the latter being a "better" move (50 energy for 90 damage) and using that to get a couple unique wins still like Diggersby and Lickitung, because Seed Bomb brings new bait potential to set up big Moonblast wins over Cresselia, Pelipper, Toxicroak, Vigoroth, and Trevenant. Not sure Whimsie is suddenly going to bust out in Open Great League or anything, but I think it's very safe to say it just became a bit scarier and more versatile in Limited metas for sure.
And there are all the actual move "rebalances". Now to wrap it up real quick with a final list of existing moves now assigned to new Pokémon!
PROBOPASS is in some ways similar to Defense Deoxys, in that it has long had three charge moves that seemed almost interchangeable in overall performance. Rock Slide is pretty standard for Probo, and most folks also run it with Thunderbolt, but it's so lackluster than even Magnet Bomb has always hung around as a viable alternative. Well that changes now, as its bulk allows it to make good use of new addition Zap Cannon. I think it and Rock Slide are the new standard, along with Spark to power them out, and that combo brings in new wins over Sableye and Umbreon, along with wider margins of victory over things it just scraped past before like Cresselia and Bastiodon. Probo used to escape them both with less than 10 HP, but now waddles away with quite a bit more than that. Not sure if this will send it up the charts (Bastiodon itself is still usually preferred), but it IS a more intriguing alternative now.
Speaking of funky Rock types, HEATRAN can learn Earth Power now! But uh... you still don't want it, sorry. At least give it Incinerate, Niantic... c'mon!
A MUCH more interesting Rock type is CRADILY, now getting some more speed with Rock Slide as a new alternative to Stone Edge. In my first blush analysis on the day of these many announced changes, I speculated that Cradily may want both Rock charge moves going forward, as it still beat things like Lanturn and even Swampert without needing Grass Knot. But in hindsight... nah, I think you want to instead just swap out Edge for Slide and be done with it. Keeping this short and sweet, here are some of my findings when comparing these side by side (by side): Grass Knot is absolutely needed to beat Diggersby, and is obviously the surest way to beat Waters and Ground (and/or Rock) types in general (including having ANY shot at beating up things like Galarian Stunfisk and Bastiodon). The raw power of Stone Edge is still the best way to punch out things like Alolan Ninetales, Lickitung, and Shadow Victreebel. But the speed of Rock Slide (10 less energy than Edge) adds the potential to now handle stuff like Cresselia, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, Venusaur, and most notably, Noctowl. That's right... Cradily now becomes a handy way to handle Lanturn AND Noctowl, among many others, and can also beat popular Sableye as well. Corebreaker potential on the rise. Dilly dilly!
Look, URSALUNA continues to disappoint and likely always will until it gets a better fast move than Tackle. I know it, you know it, basically everyone but Niantic (and maybe TPCi) knows it. But as I wrote when Luna was first released, Ice Punch at least gives it the most bite of the three main elemental Punches, and until now it was the only one Ursaluna could not learn. Now it can! That gives it a bit more reach in Master League (the one League where it currently has any real play at all) with all the Dragons already. Specifically, Ice Punch allows it to now consistently beat Garchomp and Landorus, so that's nice. But come on, Niantic. Give the people what they want!.
Let's be honest: the addition of Brutal Swing to the arsenal of TYRANITAR is more a cause of celebration for raiding than it is for PvP. (New top Dark type in PvE, I hear!) But yes, it DOES help in PvP too. Tyranitar has the size to work in Master League, but even with Brutal Swing, it's still an awkward fit. The one place I have seen it pop up here and there is actually in Great League, albeit in Limited metas only. While those opportunities are relatively rare, I am happy to report that Brutal Swing is a noted improvement over former best Crunch, adding on wins you would expect of a Dark type (Sableye, Cofagrigus, Jellicent) and a few you might not expect (Drapion, Toxapex, and finally it can beat Altaria!). Still more niche than meta, but at least it's an improving niche!
And finally, we come to humble little EMOLGA, and the first non-Community Day recipient of Acrobatics. Long-time (or even some short-time!) readers have surely seen me write many times about Aerial Ace. It's a passable move -- barely -- dealing 55 damage for 45 energy. Boooooring, but it usually works JUST enough to not be total trash. It's a move I would LOVE to see buffed a little at some point, but it's also a move currently assigned to a massive number of Pokémon, and unlikely to change unless Niantic wants to REALLY shake up PvP. And like way too many Pokémon, poor Emolga has long been stuck with dull old Ace as its only Flying move, leaving what should be an exciting option languishing in obscurity. But now, finally, this mighty mouse may be about to soar! Just look at the HUGE names it can now beat: Medicham. Lickitung. Sableye. Shadow Swampert. Trevenant. Shadow Alolan Ninetales. And Cresselia and even Froslass for good measure. Those are some really big names, folks. Did Emolga just go from being afterthought behind Zapdos to passing it completely? I think it may have! If, like me, you've been holding on to a good one and just biding your time... well, that time is now, my friend! ⚡
Speaking of time, though... it's up! The new season is here! So we're gonna wrap it up right here for now. I hope this was as helpful a read as it was LONG. 🙃
Until next time, you can find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck this season, and catch you next time!

I started my reread too early and I’ve been bouncing off the walls waiting for the final entry into the series. So I thought I’d recap on our shared journey and bring us all together in harmony.
Although we all know what happened to Harmony.
From the bottom up:

#11 Skysworn

It’s a little weird putting this last since it has one of my favorite openings in the series, but really just because it’s last doesn’t mean it’s bad. It does a good amount of work introducing stuff, we get the phoenix and redmoon, and the Akura clan, Mercy joins the gang, Ruby gets yoinked out, Oz’s Marble gets revealed, it’s not that stuff doesn’t happen, it’s just there’s no sense of purpose in the book. After the Jai Long fight, but after that the only real goal in the book is Yerin wanting to fight Redmoon hall, and then they don’t. All of our main characters are totally sidelined and we’re all sitting around waiting for ghostwater. Even though there’s great individual scenes, it just sort of meanders for the last two thirds of the book so number 11.
Best parts: Jai Daishou’s quest for revenge is seriously one of my favorite bits. Also Lindon just smashing the kid for the Kotai clan. After three books of Lindon hiding and fawning, seeing him go against someone on his own level for once is such a rewarding payoff. He needs a shell though.

#10 Reaper

This is my Skysworn problem all over again. One of the best endings in the series, but it ends a book that kind of wanders around a bit. I don’t mind the dungeon crawl but it gets a little repetitive for me as they go room to room without really giving character payoffs. It’s good to see the evolution of the dynamic between Eithan and Lindon/Yerin, but that change happened over the last two books. Nothing really shifts in the group dynamic and all the accomplishments feel incidental. Lindon makes a big deal about not leaving anyone behind and then immediately is like “Psych!” But also everyone leaves in order to help out in the Valley and they don’t. In fact the whole war in the Sacred Valley feels pretty. . . .meaningless. Like did anything really happen there in the first place? And are we caring about Jai Long or not? It’s nice to see Yerin and Lindon relax for a bit and the Twin Stars sect is fun, but it feels like not quite the right amount of it to be totally satisfying.
Everyone just feels underused. Mercy has always been a few levels behind the gang but managed to contribute important emotional intelligence and insights, here she just feels wasted. Yerin gets some fine slashy slashy bits, but nothing really challenges her this book. Dross’s bits probably are more fun on audiobook, but these personalities kinda grate on me. Also knocked down some extra points for the lack of Fisher Gesha. Dreadgod’s Gesha is right, you have all this time off and a broken Dross and you don’t stop in for a chat? Even Lindon’s advancement feels a little weird with Reigan Shen just scattering out natural treasures for the ambience. Meh.
I actually had this ranked higher but while writing this I had to bring it down. There’s some cool fights, but it just feels like grinding for XP until the end. The Eithan/Shen showdown is great and again the ending is spectacular. But otherwise not as satisfying as the average book.
Best Parts: The Destroyer Has Come (YOU KIDDING ME!!!!!). Also “Let him kick you.”

#9 Unsouled

Unsouled usually gets ranked near the bottom for folks and I really wanted to rank it higher, but it’s hard to compete with the full gang. It’s definitely a book that I need to tell people they have to get past the halfway point, so I suppose that’s a point against it. But also what a great turn in the middle. Will does such a good job setting us up for the generic fantasy genre before going “Oh you thought these were the stakes? A Kid Who’s DifferentTM needs to impress the schools in the Sacred Valley? F*** those stakes. The WORLD IS SO MUCH BIGGER” And honestly the ways he absolutely massacres those tropes are so good. When he joins heaven’s glory and they set him up with rivals that do not matter and months long objectives we never even bother with. The series would not work if we didn’t spend this time with the Unsouled Lindon and watching an actual interesting protagonist cheat to win and beat up kids and grovel his way to survival. It also does such a good job introducing us to the theme of there’s always a bigger pond. It helps make each step of the journey feel that much bigger and more awe inspiring because in this book Will made us feel like these hillbilly antics were actually powerful and impressive feats of the sacred arts. Great intro, lots of good character stuff, bottom of the ranks. Also looking back at it, how did a bunch of jades kill a sage?
Best Parts: Lindon in the Ancestor’s Tomb watches Elder Whitehall enter and look around for traps and feels his first bit of pride in the series. It’s a small moment but it sticks with me. Also Yerin when she enters and is all “The Disciple greets her master.” Also them robbing the lesser treasure hall.

#8 Soulsmith

7 and 8 flip flop a lot for me depending on my mood. Soulsmith is going here today because I think it takes the longest to get going. Besides that though there’s a lot to love in this one. Eithan and Gesha get really terrific, cinematic introductions and there’s a great sense of pacing and stakes in this one. Everything feels tough for the ol’ baby-head man and we get to see both the strengths and limitations of his scheming. Kral/Jai Long are also a really nice set of complex, relatable antagonists. I always appreciate how Will will let you get to know the bad guys and see them as the heroes of their own stories (but just messed up enough to cheer their deaths). Despite the slow start this book is always better than I remember and has a lot of heart in it. It is funny on this read seeing how Ethan is at the beginning. We think about how much Cradle changed him, but really it was Yerin and Lindon. That’s really fun storytelling.
Best Parts: Lindon advancing vs the Sandviper kid advancing sequence is something I always think about when I look back at the series.

#7 Dreadgod

This book slaps. Everyone gets a good amount of spotlight time and the Silent King is a great villain (RIP). On this reread I don’t mind the Jai Long death as much, but I still would’ve liked a scene with Kelsa and Jai Chen afterwards. This end to Jai Long arc kind of makes me wonder about the amount of time we’ve spent on his redemption arc, but if someone has to pay the piper, I’m glad it wasn’t little blue. The rest of the crew really gets to shine even with Eithan off world. The dynamics that have grown over the course of the series are really humming by this point and it’s nice to see different pairings. The heists are fun and the Redmoon Hall stuff is great. So why isn’t this higher on the list? Well Mercy feels a little too much damsel in distress. Once the Silent King is dead, the rest of the book feels a little lower stakes. Even with all the monarchs against the gang it doesn’t feel like there’s too much danger in that last fight. Also again needs more Fisher Gesha. \
Best Parts: That silent king battle is so good. Also the dreadnought city stuff is good. Basically anything to do with the Silent King. “Pew pew”

#6 Uncrowned

Just a few years after the Seven Year Festival Lindon takes the competition stage again. Imagine what he could do to the foundation level Sacred Valley 10 year olds now. These Tournament arcs are always a super fun part of Shonen Animes. And it is a great time the whole way through. Do characters learn things and change? Not so much. But does it have a scene where Lindon absolutely wrecks the Akura Clan’s top underlords? Absolutely. The book does such a good job building up Sophanaroth as the tournament’s boogeyman. That last Yerin/Lindon fight is everything. It’s a break from the serious work of the other books which is why it’s out of the top five, but man I could read the heck out of it.
Best Parts: Anything with Akura Fury, that opening scene with Lindon being tested followed by Yerin vs Eithan.
Odd Part: Sort of feel like this book’s emphasis on Yerin sensing the Way and Lindon not being able to is less misdirection and more…just kinda weird. Like…did Will change his mind? Coulda set Lindon up a little bit and would have made the beginning of Wintersteel feel a little more natural. But eh, no biggie.

#5 Ghostwater

Okay, okay, put away your pitchforks. I know this is a #1 for a lot of people. I get it. I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong. But the thing I love about the series is the great interplay between the characters and they’re all separated here. As a Lindon solo-quest it’s terrific: He does steroids, he does homework, he hangs out in a library, and he goes fishing. It’s great.
My main complaints: Harmony as a villain is a little flat. Every book in this series does a great job setting up the antagonists as fully realized characters, but here Ekeri gets that spotlight and Harmony is just sort of brooding ominously in the distance. Mercy and Yerin spend most of the book on the sidelines hiding. The Endless sword stuff we get with Yerin is nice, but it would’ve been nice to have them bond a little more.
So I know you’re wondering “Hey, Max, if you have so many complaints why is it ranked so high?” and the answer is simple: DROSSSSSSS BAAAAAAAAABY. We also have Fisher Gesha blasting emissaries out of the sky.
More importantly we see Lindon pushed against the ropes and for the first time relying on his own strength and ability to get out of it. Will had such great self-control in letting Lindon be terrible and weak for so long before he gets his legs under him and we get to see him level up not just through pounding the juice, but through his own hard work and ingenuity. It’s such a satisfying chapter in Lindon’s story.
Best part: ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I think I put my book down and screamed.

#4 Bloodline

When I first read this book it was mid-pandemic and I hated it. Well, “Hate” might be a strong word but it was tough to get through. Now with a little distance I can recognize that I felt that way because Will did such an amazing job capturing so much of the mood of going home and dealing with folks not taking the whole thing seriously. Look I don’t want to make the comment thread political here, so sub out whatever thing you hate about going home that’s it. On this reread I just had to respect Will for the way he wove it into iteration 110. I think everyone had an idea of what it would be like for Lindon to go home and I don’t think anyone totally expected what we got.
There’s clear stakes, a huge pressing danger, really keen emotional cuts, and the book just felt completely unpredictable. We got to see Ziel and Mercy fight off some of their personal demons and we got to see Lindon really deal with failure in a deeply personal way. The writing in this book is some of the best in the series and it really drove home the sense of scale seeing places that loomed so large in Unsouled looking so dismal and small in this book. A lot of heart in this one, brah.
Best Part: “No. This is the path of the White Fox.”

#3 Underlord

This is probably the cleanest bit of storytelling in the series. Yerin needs to advance or die and the Yerdon (Lirin?) dynamic finally gets a chance to develop. This book just has a lot of heart and emotional weight and a great buy-in. I feel pretty bad for our Seishen kingdom antagonists in this one, which I think means Will did a good job in setting up their rivalry. Although the gang is often in mortal peril, it never feels as dangerous as it does here. I think Yerin’s character has really evolved in this book and seeing her vulnerable without losing her identity, that’s tough to do. Seeing Lindon really find his post-ghostwater swagger is also great to watch. Everyone really feels well developed here. We’re at peak Mercy, and her advancement in this book is the most compelling part of her arc so far. I think that this is also a really important Eithan book. I feel like it is the first book where he starts engaging with the team as friends rather than pawns in his celestial chess game. He’s warm and human and has some really funny bits. Orthos’s departure gets me every time too. The twist with the Akura team selections got me so good when I first read it. I have nothing bad to say about it. Premium Cradle.
Best Parts: Lindon opening his void-key in the vault. Eithan discovering Dross. And it’s a small moment but Charity losing her concentration as the gang runs into the portal during her speech is so good.

#2: Blackflame

The dragon advances. I remember the exact moment in this series when I started being a Cradle ambassador and forcing all my friends to read these books. It was Sandviper Kral’s funeral scene. It was here where I really understood how deeply Will understood the conventions in this genre and how good he is at flipping them on their heads. I was cheering on the book two villain after ten pages. This book beginning to end reinforces how unusually good this series is and how good Will is at letting any character have the spotlight. You could make the case that this is anyone’s book:
In other books Yerin might check the box as “Tough girl character” but here she has genuine pathos and real protagonist issues to work through. Learning to let go of her master and forge her on path ahead? Yaaaaaas (uncrowned) queen.
Jai Long could have been a scary forgettable MCU villain, but he really has agency and purpose and reading it from his perspective you kinda get it. Now has the ancestor’s spear and is going to finally restore his honor and capture the avatar destroy the Jai Clan only to be caught by Jai Daishou and forced into his service? Compelling af.
Little Blue could have just been an amorphous little blob in a terrarium the whole series, but in this book she…gets tiny little legs and stuff.
But really it’s an Eithan book. In other stories he’s just Master Roshi, the wacky comic relief mentor figure, but this legitimately is his story. The main conflict is his political war with the Jai Clan and the real climax is his fight against Jai Daishou. Yes he’s a big goofy trickster, but we see the cracks in his armor through his dynamic (and unexpected vulnerability) around Cassius. We get to see him sweat a little. We get little flashes of the person he becomes over the series. In Will’s blog, he talks about how this story started as a little short about the Janitor who is the embodiment of death, and you can see how much he loves writing this guy come across in this book. It’s also just cool and fun throughout. Plus it has a majestic turtle in it.
Best Parts: “I’ll tell your Remnant.”

#1 Wintersteel

I will fight you all day about this. ALL the character dynamics are dialed up to 11 in this one. We get the best development in Yerin and Lindon’s relationship, Eithan and Yerin and Lindon’s relationship, Mercy and Malice’s relationship, Mercy and Lindon’s dynamic, Yerin and Ruby’s dynamic. Just every strand on the spiderweb of human connection is vibing real hard. Because we’re closer to the end of the tournament and penance is hanging over the results the competition feels higher stakes, we have a dreadgod stirring, big political webs, dates! Everything.
I have a friend reading this right now and she’s texting me every 2 hours with an all caps: “THIS IS ABOUT POINTS” or “HOLY SH*T EITHAN’S FIGHT!!!!” Every two hours. And she’s right to do so.
It’s just hit after hit of stuff you didn’t know you needed. Everything is paying off, Yerin’s blood shadow, Eithan’s self-control, Lindon’s hunger.
I can’t. I can’t even.
Best Parts: Eithan vs Sha Miara, “I wanted to see the look on your face,” “I’m going to punch a hole in the sky,” the Points Sage, Ruby petting the bunny. Heck this whole book is the best part.
Anyway, since this is about points, upvote before you completely blast me in the comments.

I moved a grand total of 6 times during this time period. Some by choice, others by — well — not by choice.
So, after finishing University in my hometown, Florida, I became very bored of the mundane "work, eat, sleep" life. So, I sporadically booked a flight to the sunniest place in Germany — Freiburg im Breisgau. I took a German class in highschool, so I thought why not learn another language while I'm out and about in a place I've never been before. I enrolled in a language school, where they would provide me a visa that lasted 1 year. Now here's where things get juicy.
I arrived by plane (obviously) and was escorted by the language school to my 'family'. I chose to live with a host family because I wanted to learn about German culture, and I wanted to really get into the whole "language speaking" thing. When I arrived, a woman greeted me at the door. She was in her mid 50s, and very tiny. I greeted her and quickly found out that she didn't speak any English. Like, at all. But that was okay with me because that means that I'd be forced to speak German. The issue is that she didn't really speak much German either. Well, somewhere between A2 and B1. Better than me, but... you know. I made myself comfortable in my room and went downstairs for dinner.
Two other students joined us. I asked through Google translate why they were here, because I was informed that I would be the only student. She said that Turkish would be better for her because she didn't understand the question when it was presented in german. It turns out that I was the only student from MY language school. She was working with other language schools, and hosted up to 6 students at a time. Okay, cool. I respect the grind!
I quickly befriended a few people at the language school. These students also had host families, and rambled on about how wonderful they were. Evidently, these hosts made breakfast for the students. It was in the contract, but I assumed that it was optional for the host to provide breakfast. I asked my host 'mom' why I didn't have breakfast and she replied that she didn't want to get up that early, because work for her starts at 10am. ( I leave the house at 8am) I asked if it would be possible for her to provide me with some sort of salami or cheese for breakfast every now and then. She begrudgingly agreed, and the next day I was provided with the worst quality salami I've ever seen in my life. (No offence to Netto) Keep in mind I'm paying this woman 990 euros a month for an 8m² room that includes breakfast and dinner. Yikes.
I offered for her to pay me back a few euros so I could make my own breakfast. She told me that she wasn't able to do that, because she needed the money. So, I had to buy my own things for breakfast. One day, she told me that I was taking up too much fridge space. I didn't understand exactly what she meant because her Turkish accent was very hard to understand, so I nodded my head and moved all of my things to the corner of the fridge. (It was 4 items: salami, cheese, mayo, and mustard) She raised an eyebrow at me, sighed, and left the room. One of the students who was sitting in the kitchen at the time told me that she told me to remove my things from the fridge altogether because they were taking up space and it was disrespectful. Oh man. Okay. I just threw everything away because I was so frustrated.
She also had these weird "rules" I had to follow.
- Doing laundry was 5 euros per load.
- I was not to open the window at night. It was SO hot at night and I would wake up at 4am with my bedsheets drenched in sweat. She said that if I wanted to wash my bedsheets more than once very other week, I would be charged accordingly.
- If I had a friend come over, it was 30 euros if they stayed past 9pm.
- No meat was to be eaten unless it was a Friday.
- No alcohol (I'm 23 years old???)
But I sucked up these rules becuase at the end of the day, it was HER house. I just thought that because I was paying a large sum for so little, I'd be allowed a little more control.
Anyway, a week or two after me moving in, my host mom asked me to come with her to meet her friends. I felt like we got off on the wrong foot so I thought I'd tag along. Keep in mind this is August, so it's about 28C outside. I wore a tank top and some pants. When I greeted her outside, she looked me up and down and told me to change. Politely, though. I changed into one of my sleeveless turtlenecks. When she saw this, she sighed and handed me her jacket. Weird, I thought, but it was a friendly gesture — right? Hmm. We drove to a park nearby our village and there was a large group of people waiting for us. They were all dressed rather modestly for the weather, but I thought nothing of it. She then explains to me that she's a Jehovah's Witness, and that this is a Jehovah's Witness meeting. Oh, okay. I have no issues with religion, but MAN. I'll spare you the details. Everyone at the meeting was incredibly kind, but they kept on trying to talk to me about God and the Bible.
They added me to a groupchat and told me to meet with them every Friday. If I wasn't able to make it in person, then I could join on Zoom. I didn't know what to say. It was around this time that I got a message from the school saying that they were going to move me to a new host family. Just my luck! This was because she was going to see her mother for 3 months in Turkey.
A few days after I got the notice, I was scheduled to be picked up and driven across the village by my new host 'dad'. He was a German man in his late 60s. He seemed to be kind although kinda' standoff-ish. My room was above his. Great! It was nearly 28m², and I had tons of light flowing into my room. He told me the rules of the house. Pretty basic and very understandable. However, there was something that stuck out to me. I had to ring the doorbell every time I wanted to use the kitchen.
I asked him why. He said "I'm a nudist, so I must make myself presentable when you come down." Oh god, okay. It's HIS house, ya know? I asked him about midnight snacks, because I occasionally come home late (over the weekend) and during the week I generally eat later. He said that it wouldn't be possible for me to use the kitchen past 10pm. He added that no snacks were allowed in my room. Sternly, he told me that my "late nights" would have to come to an end. Hah! I asked my German friends if this was normal and they said he was "just being German".
There was a butcher shop about a 4 minute walk from the house, so I thought I'd get him a "welcome" gift. I knew he ate meat, because for dinner we ate weinerschnitzel. I picked out a nice link of salami and handed it to him the next time we sat down for dinner. He seemed to be pleased. He asked where I bought it from, and I told him it was from the nearby butcher shop. When I say the atmosphere changed, it CHANGED. He looked down on me with a slight glare and said "I do not want such a thing. Do you know where this meat is from? I do not know. That shop probably treats the animals horribly. I do not support that." Well, the rest of dinner was awkward.
There was an instance where two Italian students were staying with us, and we had dinner with them. They spoke B2 German, and I was still at A1 (if that, honestly). They were chatting up a storm and I sat quietly and tried to listen. One of the Italian girls asked me in German if I was shy and I told her that I wasn't but I just couldn't keep up with the conversation. The host 'dad' laughed and told them in English that I "refused to speak German" because "[my] German was embarassingly bad." Hmm, that didn't feel too good. I didn't speak to him in German ever again and till this very day I struggle with speaking because I keep hearing him in my head. Ah!
Now, around this time (about 2.5 months in) I've been making more local friends and they've been telling me that I can easily rent my own apartment for the amount of money I'm paying the school. The thought of independance got me excited, so I called up the school and said HEY, refund me all the money for the host families — I'm moving into my OWN place! I hopped on WG Gesucht and found a room with a guy right in the city center of Freiburg. Hell yeah! 350 Euros a month, too. The lease was limited to about 3 months, though.
The man was in his early 30s and he told me that he preferred to keep a quiet household. Totally fair, as I literally lived in the livingroom and there wasn't much space for guests. Throughout my whole stay, he probably spoke a good 30 combined minutes to me. Like, in total. These 30 minutes consisted of him telling me to limit my bath time to 5 minutes. I'm not saying he would stand outside the bathroom and count the seconds I was in the tub, but he would coincidentally knock on the door and tell me that my 5 minutes was up whenever he was home. When I told him that I wouldn't mind sending him extra money for the water usage, he said "Oh, would you like to support the Russian government?" Uh, what? I gave up on showering/bathing when he was around. He charged me 70 euros extra anyway, and said that he didn't have the water bill on paper but that these costs were correct.
While all of this was taking place, my language school friends convinced me to download Tinder. Sure, why not. After a few dates with some kind men, I met this German guy "Steve" and we clicked pretty well. He unfortunately had a ski trip planned for when I moved out, so I wasn't able to stay with him in his apartment while I searched for my own.
Anyway, I went back on WG Gesucht in an effort to find another room/flat to stay in. And I did! Oh, it was lovely. A 1 bed 1 bath, 70m right next to the Alt Stadt. I could finally have privacy! I spoke with the landlord and she gave me the greenlight to rent till August of 2023. Perfect! I was to sign a contract 2 weeks before the move-in date. When the sign-date arrived, I got a call from her saying "actually we decided to give this to a different tenant. Thank you for your time!" Ooookay, so I'm basically homeless in 2 weeks. I spoke with my current landlord, and he told me I could stay an extra 2 weeks till I found a place. Great! I went back on the WG-Gesucht grind again. I found an even BETTER apartment closer to the city center, and the landlord seemed to be lovely. Just 3 days before I moved in, I got a text from the current landlord saying that they were unable to offer me the apartment due to an "unforseen circumstance". Bro. What? I'm going to be homeless in 3 days. Are you serious? I signed a contract and everything.
Well, it turns out that the contract wasn't valid because they weren't the landlords. They're tenants. And their "landlord" IS ALSO A TENANT. Apparently the actual landlord found out that they were subleasing illegally, so they were being evicted. How fun!
So at this point, I'm pretty desperate. The friends I made were gone, because guess what. It's almost December, and everyone flew back home. My German friends are all students so they went back to their little German villages in the middle of nowhere and couldn't take me. I desperately put ads up on Kleinanzeigen and WG Gesucht, but to no avail. Everyone is on vacation! Hotels were 100+ Euros a night, but it seemed that that was the only option. I found an Airbnb that charged only 650 euros for 15 nights, which should give me enough time to find another room. So I booked my stay. Just a day before I moved out, I recieved a message on Kleinanzeigen. A room in Waldkirch — a village about a 25 minute train ride away. Fine. I'll take it. When I tell you I RAN into that apartment, I was literally shaking the landlords hand with teary eyes telling her how much I appreciated it.
I canceled my AirBnB, but they didn't give any refunds. Yeah, it was in the description before I made the purchase, but I'd rather live in my own little room in the mountains than some 12m room shared with absolute strangers. So, I'm out 650 bucks — BUT I HAVE A PLACE! My current landlord charged me 45 euros because I begged for one extra night. He didn't even have anyone moving in my room for another 2 weeks, but oh well.
Back to Waldkirch. Now, this cute little place was in an Altbau tucked between the mountains. It was wonderful. The kitchen was all cute and old, Edeka was a 1 minute walk away, there was a local market that was open every Saturday and Sunday... the people around me were all 60+ and smiled when I attempted to speak German to them. God, I loved it. My landlord also would cook for me when she had free time. I had my own little bathroom and I had a castle view from my window. My room was also nearly 30m²!
Unfortunately, the landlord told me that I had to be out by Feburary. However, I was becoming closer with Steve, the Tinder guy. He had a temporary job in Freiburg and because it was coming to an end and he was going to start Med school in Berlin, things seemed pretty gloomy. But I had this crazy thought. Because my language school was in two locations, Freiburg and Berlin, I could just switch schools and still legally reside in Germany. I could just... live with him. Crazy? Crazy. My parents and friends threw a fit. Anyway, I packed my bags and moved in with him to Frankfurt, where his parents stayed. Best month of my life. I made sure everything was okay at my language school, and we made the switch.
So, now we had to hunt for an apartment in Berlin. And man, let me tell you guys. That's HARD. After a while of searching, we finally landed a place in Moabit. March, April, and May have passed. Unfortunately for us, our lease ends in August. So guess who's moving again! Me! At least now I have someone with me to hold my hand through this stressful process. (If anyone has any long-term flats for rent... help!)
I've fallen too in love with this man because I'm now about to apply for the self employment visa so I can stay in germany until his med school finishes. It's been a crazy ride, but I'm so glad I came to Germany. Maybe I'll make a post about all of the other crazy non-housing related German stories!

GO Battle League Season 15 is upon us, and along with it, our now-customary move rebalance! What's new, what's improved, what's good, bad, or ugly coming out the other side? Let's dive right in and see!
As per usual, Niantic has made us wait until the 11th hour for information on this coming season. (Thanks, Niantic... love you too! 😝) As is NOT usual for them of late, the rebalance taking place at the start of this new GBL season is massive, with no less than thirty three Pokémon being directly affected. Needless to say, this is going to be a lengthy analysis, so let's just dive right into it, shall we?

A FAIR WIND, OR GALE FORCE WINDS?

It might seem odd to lead off with a move given to only two new recipients, but CLEFABLE is no ordinary recipient. It has faded further and further into obscurity over time as other Fairies have risen up around it, having dropped out of the Top 5 Fairies in Ultra League and almost out of the Top 10 in Great League. It's still decently bulky, and still comes with the awesome Meteor Mash, which is not only cheaper than most charge moves found on various Charmers (that don't rhyme with "Aloe Van Pine Nails"), but is very widely unresisted and, critically in themed Cups where Clefable is eligible, super effective versus fellow Fairies, often delivering a knockout blow. The problem, of course, is that like other Charmers, you're unlikely to reach it in multiples, since Charm only generates a way below average 2.0 Energy Per Turn (EPT), tied for worst energy generation in the game. It also has Psychic for coverage, or Moonblast for big STAB damage, but the likelihood of reaching any of those in a critical spot is rather low since Charm is just SO slow to get there. So it has sat, languishing, as other interesting Charmers have come along and is now, at best, just part of a growing pack of similiar Pokémon.
That ALL changes with the addition of Fairy Wind and its 4.5 EPT. Not only does this allow it to finally break away from the pack and make its own unique mark, but it works REALLY well with its moves. Spamming a Meteor Mash every 6 seconds (or thanks to carryover energy, just 5 seconds between the second and third Mash) sounds pretty good to me! And indeed, as compared to Charm, you can see immediate improvement in Great League, with new wins against Noctowl (!!!), Azumarill, Froslass, Diggersby, Alolan Ninetales, and somehow even Fairy slayer Shadow Victreebel by slamming it with two Meteor Mashes. Even after all that, though, it remains underwater overall as far as win/loss record goes, though beating Medicham and Noctowl and all else that you'd expect of a good Fairy give it some great corebreaking potential.
For the eye-popping numbers, we actually turn to Ultra League, where Clef turns from this into this. Yes, that IS more than double its former win total (and a jump from under 30% winrate to now 60%!), with those new wins coming versus Walrein, A-Ninetales, Sylveon, Aurorus, Cobalion, Dubwool, Snorlax, Drapion, DDeoxys, and even resists-all-of-Clefable's-moves Escavalier! And if its relatively high XL cost is scaring you, fear not... you can build a hundo to 2499 CP and miss out only on Walrein and Greedent, for what that's worth. Put simply, Clefable is one of the biggest winners in this rebalance, moving from a previous rank of #145 in Open UL all the way up now to #28, with Tapu Fini being the only Fairy ranked higher!

• More of a footnote is TOGETIC, which now also learns Fairy Wind, and boy did it need that. Previously having to rely on the mostly awful Hidden Power (in which case you usually had to hope to get lucky with Flying type H.P.) or the subpar Extrasensory, it was left looking quite pitiful. But now, at least it could be spice in the right meta, maybe.
  
• WIGGLYTUFF did not get Fairy Wind, but it is receiving Disarming Voice, a move I've been wishing would be more widely distributed for years. A Fairy-type clone of moves like Psyshock, Magnet Bomb, and Foul Play, it's a more-than-passable move, and quietly the cheapest one that Fairy has available...15 less energy than Play Rough and Moonblast, and better Damage Per Energy {DPE} than the former. Anyway, seeing as Wigglytuff currently relies on Play Rough, Voice likely now slots in as its replacement for a little more shield pressure and new wins like Azumarill and Lickitung. The needle doesn't move too much, but the improvement is still appreciated!
  
• PRIMARINA also gets Voice, but it doesn't really help it... yet. Prima IS a little underrated in Master League, where its Water typing is much more help (resisting Ice, Fire, Water) than hindrance (very little Grass and Electric around to exploit it). But it won't really take off until it also eventually gets Hydro Cannon... sometime in 2025? At that point, it will appreciate having cheap Disarming Voice alongside Cannon more, I think.
  

LONG STORY SHORT, Fairy Wind Clefable is one of those rather rare overnight sensations that could see an immediate usage spike in Ultra League and as a nice corebreaker in Great League (the pickup against Noctowl really pushing it over the top). It really appreciates the extra energy to spam charge moves, and has just enough variety between Meteor Mash, Psychic (the move!), and Moonblast to keep the opponent guessing and shielding when they really don't want to. The other Fairies with new toys (Togetic and Wigglytuff especially) appreciate small bumps in performance, but are unlikely to suddenly appear where they weren't already.

DRILL RUNNIN' 🔥

As with Fairy Wind, there are only two new recipients of Drill Run, but both are very interesting.
We'll start with ALOLAN SANDSLASH. It sees some play already in both Great (including the Shadow variant and Ultra Leagues, usually with former Community Day move Shadow Claw to give it a unique profile, and spammy Ice Punch and typically Bulldoze for coverage. Bulldoze has excellent coverage (primarily versus Rocks, Steels, and Fires that give A-Slash a lot of trouble otherwise), but isn't a very good move (60 energy for only 80 damage). Drill Run is a strict upgrade, dealing the same 80 Ground-type damage for only 45 energy, a big savings.
Looking simply at simulation numbers, Drill Run doesn't seem to be a great improvement in Great or Ultra, with just occasional new wins popping up like UL Scizor or GL Alolan Marowak in certain shielding scenarios. But this goes beyond the numbers. Those who already use and love A-Slash will greatly appreciate the extra pressure that comes with Drill Run, as it can now be sprung for just 5 more energy than Ice Punch, making each shielding decision that much sweatier for the opponent. Even without STAB, Drill Run still deals quite a bit more damage than Ice Punch versus neutral targets, so this isn't just for strict coverage either. In every way, this makes Alolan Sandslash better, and better at covering its backside. I think players that don't already use A-Slash may come to better appreciate and respect it now too, and perhaps not just in Limited metas!
Perhaps even more interesting (and, frankly, unexpected) is DEWGONG, the poor WateIce type that has NEVER had a move rebalance other than taking its two best moves (Ice Shard and Icy Wind) away. Niantic has finally given it a LOT of love in this update, with Drill Run providing new coverage, and new move Liquidation finally giving it a viable Water move too. (Water Pulse and Aqua Jet are both terrible, folks... so much so that I've always recommended Blizzard as Dewgong's second move. For example, did you know that it tends to lose to Alolan Marowak with super effective Pulse but actually wins with resisted Blizzard?!) Anyway, I do think you want to definitely keep Icy Wind, so then your choice becomes Drill Run to have a shot at things like Froslass, Toxicroak, Lanturn (with Water Gun), and the aforementioned Alolan Marowak, or Liquidation to better outrace Skarmory and Alolan Ninetales? Either way, you get things like Azumarill and Dunsparce now, and still beat things that don't show in those sims like Swampert and Sableye by remaining fully commited to Icy Wind spam. And while you don't see a lot of new Rock or Steel or Fire wins popping up, Drill Run especially gives them all serious pause, forcing them to shield where they really never had to worry about it much before. (Because, again, Water Pulse is awful.)
So not really a great case for Liquidation here, but this is at least a way to transition into covering that move more fully next!
LONG STORY SHORT, both Dewgong and Alolan Sandslash immediately get better (and get better coverage) with Drill Run in the mix. I think it will be their preferred secondary/closing move going forward, and both will see a bump in play.

LIQUIDATION... GOING OUT OF BUSINESS ALREADY?

So about that new move Liquidation. It's a good if not fantastic move, an exact clone of Crunch... same cost (45 energy), damage (70), and potential debuff (30% chance to reduce the opponent's Defense). Not game breaking, but very, very solid.
But the real question is... do any of the things that recieve it really want it, and if so, do any of them notably improve in PvP?
I'm gonna save you some time (and me some characters!) by immediately pushing many of its recipients right off the raft.

• I think CLOYSTER actually prefers to hold on to a big closer like Hydro Pump rather than Liquidation, preferring to soften things up with Icy Wind and then go in for the kill. Pass.
  
• Similarly, all of the following prefer to keep existing movesets: SAMUROTT (Hydro Cannon/Megahorn), CARRACOSTA (Body Slam/Surf), BEARTIC (Ice Punch/Aqua Tail), EELEKTROSS (Dragon Claw/Crunch). All remain fringe at best.
  
• VAPOREON basically views Liquidation as a sidegrade to existing Scald, though Liquidation is NOT Legacy as Scald is, so it's worth it for any Vapes that don't have its old Community Day move. But Vaporeon remains mostly on the outside looking in at better Water types in various Leagues. No real boost here.
  
• GOLDUCK sees a slight bump with Liquidation, but remains just a spice play, at best.
  
• There is a reason you have never seen FLOATZEL in PvP... it has terrible charge moves. Bad, bad moves like Swift and Aqua Jet, with Hydro Pump as a passable closer but stymied due to average-at-best energy gains from Water Gun or Waterfall. Liquidation is in some ways just what the doctor ordered, but uh... Floatzel still sinks in PvP.
  
• ARMALDO remains a lost cause as well. If you want a GOOD Rocky Bug, use Crustle. If you want a spice one, go with the new Kleavor. If you want to just tank your ELO, THEN maybe consider Armaldo. That's about it though, even with the new move.
  

Man, quite a bummer, right? Decent move, but really nothing that gets it stands to benefit in a way that will impact PvP. So moving on then to... wait, what? I missed one? Oh... OH! So I did. And thankfully, we can end this section on a good note... because GOLISOPOD just became a bit more interesting.
Remember that when it was first released, it was a completely lost cause, with Fury Cutter, Metal Claw, and Waterfall as its clumsy fast moves, and underwhelming X-Scissor, **Aerial Ace, and somehow even worse Aqua Jet as its only charge moves. That left it in a very sad state. Eventually, it acquired Shadow Claw, which made it at least slightly interesting. And now comes the charge move it's been begging for, with Liquidation elevating it into spice territory, at the very least. Now you can potentially beat things like Charizard, Nidoqueen, Alolan Sandslash, Alolan Ninetales (Powder Snow), Talonflame, Cobalion, and Sylveon that you couldn't before, though even as bad as Aerial Ace is, giving it up means you generally now lose some Grasses like Venusaur and Virizion. Still though, things are looking up for Golisopod!
LONG STORY SHORT, while Liquidation is actually a nice addition to Water's arsenal (a clone of Crunch, including the debuff chance), the only thing that gets it initially that really looks to benefit is Golisopod. Stay tuned to what may get it down the road, though... most of its current recipients just have more problems than Liquidation alone can solve.

THE LEAF AGE BEGINS?

Probably haven't seen Bullet Punch in PvP much, have you? Scizor and Metagross use it, and uh... that's about the extent of it. But it's actually a pretty good PvP fast move, with the average 3.0 Damage Per Turn (DPT) but above average energy generation (3.5 EPT). And now here comes Leafage, an exact clone of Bullet Punch for the Grass typing. The number of things that get it is quite a bit smaller than Liquidation (only three evolutionary lines), but I think this is a clear case of quality over quantity in Leafage's favor.

• I could write an entire article on the injustices done to DECIDUEYE in Pokémon GO. All its interesting moves in MSG, and here it sits with underpowered Shadow Sneak, overpriced Energy Ball, and big but risky closer Brave Bird, and all locked behind low-energy Razor Leaf or arguably worst fast move in the game Astonish. #JusticeForDecidueye! While I do still hope for an eventual and LONG overdue buff to Astonish, for now the addition of Leafage should be a big help, right? Weeeeeeeell..... I mean, yes, it is most certainly better, and will become even a bit moreso when it eventually gets Frenzy Plant. But clearly, it's problems are not JUST the fast moves. Heck, pre-evolution DARTRIX (who has also been trapped behind Razor Leaf) even looks better than Deci in the here and now, thanks in large part to having Seed Bomb as a more workable second charge move to set up Brave Bird. It does seem that even though ROWLETT also gets Leafage, it may still prefer to keep existing Razor Leaf down in Little League, where Razor Leaf can admittedly be particularly dominant.
  
• LURANTIS (and Little League pre-evolution FOMANTIS) operates nicely right now as sort of a Jack of all trades with Fury Cutter (and its Bug damage output) powering up Leaf Blade and Superpower (well, Grass Knot in Fomantis' case). Superpower allows for some nutty wins like Bastiodon, Galarian Stunfisk, and excecuted properly, even Registeel, clearly showing Lurantis' appeal. So does Leafage help or disrupt the good Lurantis has already got going? Eh, I think we're gonna call it a sidegrade, though a tasty one for sure. Lurantis does give up a couple things where the effectiveness of Fury Cutter wins the day (Cresselia, Shadow Victreebel) and loses a little speed, which flips Shadow Alolan Sandslash to a loss. (Luratnis cannot hit a Leaf Blade AND followon Superpower in time with Leafage like it can with Fury Cutter.) But Leafage is able to carve out new wins like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Pelipper with superior neutral fast move damage (as opposed to resisted Bug damage), and also can outrace Walrein far more reliably. So not an upgrade, but a nice sidegrade like this can add some disruption into appropriate metas just fine.
  
• Speaking of disruption, let's check out ABOMASNOW. Obviously it runs more as an Ice than a Grass, humming along nicely in multiple metas with Powder Snow and Weather Ball (Ice) and Energy Ball for a big Grass closer when the situation calls for it. And more than likely, it will mostly continue in that configuration moving forward. BUT, Leafage may be preferred in certain metas now, at least, and not just because it now slams the door on Water types (instead of sometimes merely scraping by with Powder Snow). In Great League, where ShadowBama is usually preferred, Powder Snow continues to shine out, but it's worth noting that while Leafage is an overall downgrade, most of the wins it gives up are versus Flyers (Altaria, Noctowl, Skarmory, Mandibuzz), with new losses to Umbreon and Venusaur as the most notable exceptions. Leafage DOES make some new key contributions like Powder Alolan Ninetales and Galarian Stunfisk that may come more to the fore in Limited metas with, say, fewer Flyers? Just saying. In Ultra League, the biggest knock against Leafage is that it drops the Giratinas (as compared to Powder Snow), but otherwise Leafage makes a pretty strong case with pickups of Poliwrath, Walrein, and Alolan Ninetales (with Powder Snow OR Charm). I think Leafage deserves some real consideration at Ultra League level!
  

LONG STORY SHORT, no huge improvements to be found with Leafage, but it does earn a rightful place as a robust sidegrade consideration for the Lurantis and Abomasnow lines (particularly with Ultra League Aboma). It's an upgrade for the Rowlett/Dartrix/Decidueye line, though Deci itself remains middling at best until it one day gets Frenzy Plant (or just some more synergistic charge moves in general!). Leafage SHOULD start popping up here and there in PvP soon, moreso than Liquidation likely will.

JUST A BRUSH FIRE, REALLY

Honestly, I expected a number of things to get Mystical Fire after it recently entered the game, but for now, Niantic chose to distribute it to only two new Pokémon:

• As I mentioned in my analysis on Mystical Fire back during Delphox Community Day, DRIFBLIM is an intriguing choice. Mystical Fire and existing Blim coverage move Icy Wind share the same stats aside from typing, so this is almost the very definition of sidegrade... against neutral targets they do the exact same thing, so it just comes down to effectiveness. If Blim is facing something burnable (like a Steel, Ice, or Bug type), it will prefer to have Mystical Fire. For things weak to Ice, like Flyers and Dragons and Grounds, obviously it will want to be packing Icy Wind instead. (Grasses are weak to both Fire and Ice, so usually no change there, aside from things like Abomasnow with a subtyping that favors one or the other... in that case, Mystical Fire is double super effective and Icy Wind is merely neutral.) I'm not going to bother with the sims, as they're close to indistinguishable at a high level, but I WILL note that Mystical Fire can potentially beat Galarian Stunfisk at Ultra League level, and more definitely beats G-Fisk AND A-Slash, Skarmory, and even Registeel at Great League level, none of which Icy Wind can realistically hope to replicate. (Its only standouts are things like Gliscor.) Yes, giving up Icy Wind means completely abandoning hope versus things like Ghost-resistant Pidgeot and especially Noctowl, but overall? I think Drifblim might be getting much hotter soon, in several senses of the word! 🔥
  
• Not nearly as exciting, I admit, but note that LITWICK also gets Mystical Fire. It's really only for Little League use, and has been an interesting but lesser-used Fire type, falling behind things like Vulpix, Growlithe, and Tepig thanks to them having some good neutral coverage, while Litwick has been stuck with just Flame Charge and two other rather Fire charge moves. Mystical Fire slots in as a nearly straight upgrade with pickups that include Wynaut, Vullaby, Obstagoon (for LL Cups where it's allowed), and... Vulpix, regardless of which fast move 'Pix is using. Something to look forward to in the next Little League rotation!
  

LONG STORY SHORT, Mystical Fire IS likely the default coverage move of choice for Drifblim going forward, just because of the number of burnable things (as opposed to freezeable things) in its respective metas, Great League especially. Except to see Blim soar up a little higher than it has in a while. It's also a nice upgrade for Litwick, who should finally emerge as a true Fire contender in Little League formats.

ODDS AND ENDS

Going to put everything else together in this last main section, but don't mistake that to mean they're less important... quite the contrary! Just doing this because these are all one-offs, as opposed to the changes above which directly affected multiple Pokémon recipients.
Before I dive into the specific move additions, let's briefly review the existing moves that are being buffed or nerfed in this update.

• Icicle Spear - 60 power → 65 power. Obviously this only affects WALREIN (for now), and is obviously a strict upgrade, since the cost and all else remains the same, just more damage. Specifically, at a high level, I see Walrein picking up things like Skarmory and Umbreon (non-Shadow) and Trevenant, Pelipper, and Azumarill (Shadow) in Great League, and stuff like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Virizion in Ultra League. So yeah... you didn't need me to tell you this was an improvement, but maybe that helps you decide how much of an improvement and whether you want to turn back to Wally if you ever turned away before. I'd say Great League in particular has reason to fear it a bit more again.
  
• Poison Fang - 40 power → 45 power. More things affected by this than Icicle Spear, but obviously most of you just want to know about NIDOQUEEN, so in the interest of time and... well, interest, we'll just highlight her for now. Again, you don't need me to tell you this only makes things with Poison Fang better, but HOW much better? Honestly not too much changes in Great League (as far as straight wins a losses go, though this is undoubtedly scarier now!), but in Ultra League, I see new wins for Queen versus things like Charizard, Pidgeot, Cresselia, Dubwool, Obstagoon, AND Guzzlord, among others, so this is no small tweak! Might Nidoqueen be "back"? Only time will tell. Admittedly, what made it SO scary in the past was the cheaper cost of Poison Fang, and that hasn't changed, so I don't see it returning to full dominance like she once enjoyed. I also think she was treated rather harshly even before this buff... she didn't fall off quite as hard as many made it out to be. This will reveal that more fully... she's not so much "back" as much as I think she never really left. Also keep in mind things like GOLBAT/CROBAT and SALAZZLE/SALANDIT** that stand to benefit from this as well!
  
• Rollout - 4 power → 5 power. So low power that I can tell you this won't be a big shift, but obviously it DOES help. DUNSPARCE picks up a potential win over Shadow Alolan Ninetales (hey, Rollout is super effective, so....), and MILTANK a new win versus Shadow Swampert, of all things, and sometimes (Water Gun) Lanturn when utilizing Ice Beam instead of my personal recommendation of Thunderbolt (which beats Lanturn as well). It tends to prefer Tackle in Ultra League, though newly buffed Rollout is MUCH improved now with new wins versus Cresselia, Drapion, Umbreon, Alolan Muk, AND Walrein. Perhaps Tackle won't be the default now? As for ALOLAN GOLEM, Volt Switch just remains a much better move in nearly every scenario and meta. Stick with that, I say, and get all the Rock damage you need from the charge moves instead. 🪨
  
• Mud Bomb - 55 power → 60 power. The two big ones that come to mind are TOXICROAK and WHISCASH, the latter of which honestly needed a boost like this. However, this small a bump looks and feels like more of a "win more" where they already won more than anything. The only notable new win I see (at the high level this massive rebalance is demanding of little old me!) is Toxicroak versus Trevenant, though I think that's more due to Trevenant's nerf (which we'll get to in a moment) than Toxicroak's resisted Mud Bomb dealing a tiny bit more damage. (And upon further review, it may be neither of those and instead just come down to move timing.. but leaving Trevor in here as it's a good setup for later.) The big winner here is actually QUAGSIRE, who FINALLY gets a charge move cheaper than 55 energy to reach the same spam potential as its fellow Mud Boys. It's hard to show how this improves things in simulations, as they actually tend to favor Earthquake in many situations (such as in 1v1 shielding, where Quake shows additional wins against things like Azu, Sable, Swampert, and Umbreon), but the difference is more obvious when you go 2v2 shielding, and the extra spam of Mud Bomb shows out with new wins that include Froslass, Jellicent, Toxicroak, Shadow Alolan Ninetales, and Shadow Walrein. I actually don't know if this will actually bump up Quagsire's useage or not, though it's shot up about 60 slots to #15 in PvPoke's rankings. Not sure if that will match reality, but I DO think it's time to see if you have a good PvP Quag to perhaps take out for a spin and see. It certainly has some exciting new potential it's never had before!
  
• Seed Bomb - 55 power → 60 power, Energy Cost Increased. The only thing on this list that's not a straight upgrade, getting the same damage boost as Mud Bomb but increased cost to go with it... mostly, I feel, as a backdoor way to bring Trevenant down a bit. (And indeed, PvPoke has dropped Trev 25 slots from #10 to #35 in Ultra League, and down nearly 70 slots in Great League from Top 10 to outside the Top 70!) I certainly don't think Trevor will be going away -- it still breaks several cores across multiple Leagues -- but this is undoubtedly a hit. In Great League, it looks like it's now at a disadvantage against things it used to be able to beat like Walrein, Talonflame, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, and even Toxicroak. The hit is a bit less severe in Ultra League (where it can hang in longer to somewhat compensate for the increased energy needed), but it does still lose former wins like Jellicent and the re-buffed Nidoqueen. Most of the rest of the collateral damage will be felt in Little League, where several notable things have Seed Bomb (like Bulbasaur, Exeggcute, Oddish, etc.). Note much of note in bigger Leagues, though it IS noteworthy that WHIMSICOTT is getting Seed Bomb for the first time. And yes, I think it DOES become the favorite in most circumstances over existing Grass Knot, despite the latter being a "better" move (50 energy for 90 damage) and using that to get a couple unique wins still like Diggersby and Lickitung, because Seed Bomb brings new bait potential to set up big Moonblast wins over Cresselia, Pelipper, Toxicroak, Vigoroth, and Trevenant. Not sure Whimsie is suddenly going to bust out in Open Great League or anything, but I think it's very safe to say it just became a bit scarier and more versatile in Limited metas for sure.
  

And there are all the actual move "rebalances". Now to wrap it up real quick with a final list of existing moves now assigned to new Pokémon!

• PROBOPASS is in some ways similar to Defense Deoxys, in that it has long had three charge moves that seemed almost interchangeable in overall performance. Rock Slide is pretty standard for Probo, and most folks also run it with Thunderbolt, but it's so lackluster than even Magnet Bomb has always hung around as a viable alternative. Well that changes now, as its bulk allows it to make good use of new addition Zap Cannon. I think it and Rock Slide are the new standard, along with Spark to power them out, and that combo brings in new wins over Sableye and Umbreon, along with wider margins of victory over things it just scraped past before like Cresselia and Bastiodon. Probo used to escape them both with less than 10 HP, but now waddles away with quite a bit more than that. Not sure if this will send it up the charts (Bastiodon itself is still usually preferred), but it IS a more intriguing alternative now.
  
• Speaking of funky Rock types, HEATRAN can learn Earth Power now! But uh... you still don't want it, sorry. At least give it Incinerate, Niantic... c'mon!
  
• A MUCH more interesting Rock type is CRADILY, now getting some more speed with Rock Slide as a new alternative to Stone Edge. In my first blush analysis on the day of these many announced changes, I speculated that Cradily may want both Rock charge moves going forward, as it still beat things like Lanturn and even Swampert without needing Grass Knot. But in hindsight... nah, I think you want to instead just swap out Edge for Slide and be done with it. Keeping this short and sweet, here are some of my findings when comparing these side by side (by side): Grass Knot is absolutely needed to beat Diggersby, and is obviously the surest way to beat Waters and Ground (and/or Rock) types in general (including having ANY shot at beating up things like Galarian Stunfisk and Bastiodon). The raw power of Stone Edge is still the best way to punch out things like Alolan Ninetales, Lickitung, and Shadow Victreebel. But the speed of Rock Slide (10 less energy than Edge) adds the potential to now handle stuff like Cresselia, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, Venusaur, and most notably, Noctowl. That's right... Cradily now becomes a handy way to handle Lanturn AND Noctowl, among many others, and can also beat popular Sableye as well. Corebreaker potential on the rise. Dilly dilly!
  
• Look, URSALUNA continues to disappoint and likely always will until it gets a better fast move than Tackle. I know it, you know it, basically everyone but Niantic (and maybe TPCi) knows it. But as I wrote when Luna was first released, Ice Punch at least gives it the most bite of the three main elemental Punches, and until now it was the only one Ursaluna could not learn. Now it can! That gives it a bit more reach in Master League (the one League where it currently has any real play at all) with all the Dragons already. Specifically, Ice Punch allows it to now consistently beat Garchomp and Landorus, so that's nice. But come on, Niantic. Give the people what they want!.
  
• Let's be honest: the addition of Brutal Swing to the arsenal of TYRANITAR is more a cause of celebration for raiding than it is for PvP. (New top Dark type in PvE, I hear!) But yes, it DOES help in PvP too. Tyranitar has the size to work in Master League, but even with Brutal Swing, it's still an awkward fit. The one place I have seen it pop up here and there is actually in Great League, albeit in Limited metas only. While those opportunities are relatively rare, I am happy to report that Brutal Swing is a noted improvement over former best Crunch, adding on wins you would expect of a Dark type (Sableye, Cofagrigus, Jellicent) and a few you might not expect (Drapion, Toxapex, and finally it can beat Altaria!). Still more niche than meta, but at least it's an improving niche!
  
• And finally, we come to humble little EMOLGA, and the first non-Community Day recipient of Acrobatics. Long-time (or even some short-time!) readers have surely seen me write many times about Aerial Ace. It's a passable move -- barely -- dealing 55 damage for 45 energy. Boooooring, but it usually works JUST enough to not be total trash. It's a move I would LOVE to see buffed a little at some point, but it's also a move currently assigned to a massive number of Pokémon, and unlikely to change unless Niantic wants to REALLY shake up PvP. And like way too many Pokémon, poor Emolga has long been stuck with dull old Ace as its only Flying move, leaving what should be an exciting option languishing in obscurity. But now, finally, this mighty mouse may be about to soar! Just look at the HUGE names it can now beat: Medicham. Lickitung. Sableye. Shadow Swampert. Trevenant. Shadow Alolan Ninetales. And Cresselia and even Froslass for good measure. Those are some really big names, folks. Did Emolga just go from being afterthought behind Zapdos to passing it completely? I think it may have! If, like me, you've been holding on to a good one and just biding your time... well, that time is now, my friend! ⚡
  

Speaking of time, though... it's up! The new season is here! So we're gonna wrap it up right here for now. I hope this was as helpful a read as it was LONG. 🙃
Until next time, you can find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck this season, and catch you next time!

GO Battle League Season 15 is upon us, and along with it, our now-customary move rebalance! What's new, what's improved, what's good, bad, or ugly coming out the other side? Let's dive right in and see!
As per usual, Niantic has made us wait until the 11th hour for information on this coming season. (Thanks, Niantic... love you too! 😝) As is NOT usual for them of late, the rebalance taking place at the start of this new GBL season is massive, with no less than thirty three Pokémon being directly affected. Needless to say, this is going to be a lengthy analysis, so let's just dive right into it, shall we?

A FAIR WIND, OR GALE FORCE WINDS?

It might seem odd to lead off with a move given to only two new recipients, but CLEFABLE is no ordinary recipient. It has faded further and further into obscurity over time as other Fairies have risen up around it, having dropped out of the Top 5 Fairies in Ultra League and almost out of the Top 10 in Great League. It's still decently bulky, and still comes with the awesome Meteor Mash, which is not only cheaper than most charge moves found on various Charmers (that don't rhyme with "Aloe Van Pine Nails"), but is very widely unresisted and, critically in themed Cups where Clefable is eligible, super effective versus fellow Fairies, often delivering a knockout blow. The problem, of course, is that like other Charmers, you're unlikely to reach it in multiples, since Charm only generates a way below average 2.0 Energy Per Turn (EPT), tied for worst energy generation in the game. It also has Psychic for coverage, or Moonblast for big STAB damage, but the likelihood of reaching any of those in a critical spot is rather low since Charm is just SO slow to get there. So it has sat, languishing, as other interesting Charmers have come along and is now, at best, just part of a growing pack of similiar Pokémon.
That ALL changes with the addition of Fairy Wind and its 4.5 EPT. Not only does this allow it to finally break away from the pack and make its own unique mark, but it works REALLY well with its moves. Spamming a Meteor Mash every 6 seconds (or thanks to carryover energy, just 5 seconds between the second and third Mash) sounds pretty good to me! And indeed, as compared to Charm, you can see immediate improvement in Great League, with new wins against Noctowl (!!!), Azumarill, Froslass, Diggersby, Alolan Ninetales, and somehow even Fairy slayer Shadow Victreebel by slamming it with two Meteor Mashes. Even after all that, though, it remains underwater overall as far as win/loss record goes, though beating Medicham and Noctowl and all else that you'd expect of a good Fairy give it some great corebreaking potential.
For the eye-popping numbers, we actually turn to Ultra League, where Clef turns from this into this. Yes, that IS more than double its former win total (and a jump from under 30% winrate to now 60%!), with those new wins coming versus Walrein, A-Ninetales, Sylveon, Aurorus, Cobalion, Dubwool, Snorlax, Drapion, DDeoxys, and even resists-all-of-Clefable's-moves Escavalier! And if its relatively high XL cost is scaring you, fear not... you can build a hundo to 2499 CP and miss out only on Walrein and Greedent, for what that's worth. Put simply, Clefable is one of the biggest winners in this rebalance, moving from a previous rank of #145 in Open UL all the way up now to #28, with Tapu Fini being the only Fairy ranked higher!

• More of a footnote is TOGETIC, which now also learns Fairy Wind, and boy did it need that. Previously having to rely on the mostly awful Hidden Power (in which case you usually had to hope to get lucky with Flying type H.P.) or the subpar Extrasensory, it was left looking quite pitiful. But now, at least it could be spice in the right meta, maybe.
  
• WIGGLYTUFF did not get Fairy Wind, but it is receiving Disarming Voice, a move I've been wishing would be more widely distributed for years. A Fairy-type clone of moves like Psyshock, Magnet Bomb, and Foul Play, it's a more-than-passable move, and quietly the cheapest one that Fairy has available...15 less energy than Play Rough and Moonblast, and better Damage Per Energy {DPE} than the former. Anyway, seeing as Wigglytuff currently relies on Play Rough, Voice likely now slots in as its replacement for a little more shield pressure and new wins like Azumarill and Lickitung. The needle doesn't move too much, but the improvement is still appreciated!
  
• PRIMARINA also gets Voice, but it doesn't really help it... yet. Prima IS a little underrated in Master League, where its Water typing is much more help (resisting Ice, Fire, Water) than hindrance (very little Grass and Electric around to exploit it). But it won't really take off until it also eventually gets Hydro Cannon... sometime in 2025? At that point, it will appreciate having cheap Disarming Voice alongside Cannon more, I think.
  

LONG STORY SHORT, Fairy Wind Clefable is one of those rather rare overnight sensations that could see an immediate usage spike in Ultra League and as a nice corebreaker in Great League (the pickup against Noctowl really pushing it over the top). It really appreciates the extra energy to spam charge moves, and has just enough variety between Meteor Mash, Psychic (the move!), and Moonblast to keep the opponent guessing and shielding when they really don't want to. The other Fairies with new toys (Togetic and Wigglytuff especially) appreciate small bumps in performance, but are unlikely to suddenly appear where they weren't already.

DRILL RUNNIN' 🔥

As with Fairy Wind, there are only two new recipients of Drill Run, but both are very interesting.
We'll start with ALOLAN SANDSLASH. It sees some play already in both Great (including the Shadow variant and Ultra Leagues, usually with former Community Day move Shadow Claw to give it a unique profile, and spammy Ice Punch and typically Bulldoze for coverage. Bulldoze has excellent coverage (primarily versus Rocks, Steels, and Fires that give A-Slash a lot of trouble otherwise), but isn't a very good move (60 energy for only 80 damage). Drill Run is a strict upgrade, dealing the same 80 Ground-type damage for only 45 energy, a big savings.
Looking simply at simulation numbers, Drill Run doesn't seem to be a great improvement in Great or Ultra, with just occasional new wins popping up like UL Scizor or GL Alolan Marowak in certain shielding scenarios. But this goes beyond the numbers. Those who already use and love A-Slash will greatly appreciate the extra pressure that comes with Drill Run, as it can now be sprung for just 5 more energy than Ice Punch, making each shielding decision that much sweatier for the opponent. Even without STAB, Drill Run still deals quite a bit more damage than Ice Punch versus neutral targets, so this isn't just for strict coverage either. In every way, this makes Alolan Sandslash better, and better at covering its backside. I think players that don't already use A-Slash may come to better appreciate and respect it now too, and perhaps not just in Limited metas!
Perhaps even more interesting (and, frankly, unexpected) is DEWGONG, the poor WateIce type that has NEVER had a move rebalance other than taking its two best moves (Ice Shard and Icy Wind) away. Niantic has finally given it a LOT of love in this update, with Drill Run providing new coverage, and new move Liquidation finally giving it a viable Water move too. (Water Pulse and Aqua Jet are both terrible, folks... so much so that I've always recommended Blizzard as Dewgong's second move. For example, did you know that it tends to lose to Alolan Marowak with super effective Pulse but actually wins with resisted Blizzard?!) Anyway, I do think you want to definitely keep Icy Wind, so then your choice becomes Drill Run to have a shot at things like Froslass, Toxicroak, Lanturn (with Water Gun), and the aforementioned Alolan Marowak, or Liquidation to better outrace Skarmory and Alolan Ninetales? Either way, you get things like Azumarill and Dunsparce now, and still beat things that don't show in those sims like Swampert and Sableye by remaining fully commited to Icy Wind spam. And while you don't see a lot of new Rock or Steel or Fire wins popping up, Drill Run especially gives them all serious pause, forcing them to shield where they really never had to worry about it much before. (Because, again, Water Pulse is awful.)
So not really a great case for Liquidation here, but this is at least a way to transition into covering that move more fully next!
LONG STORY SHORT, both Dewgong and Alolan Sandslash immediately get better (and get better coverage) with Drill Run in the mix. I think it will be their preferred secondary/closing move going forward, and both will see a bump in play.

LIQUIDATION... GOING OUT OF BUSINESS ALREADY?

So about that new move Liquidation. It's a good if not fantastic move, an exact clone of Crunch... same cost (45 energy), damage (70), and potential debuff (30% chance to reduce the opponent's Defense). Not game breaking, but very, very solid.
But the real question is... do any of the things that recieve it really want it, and if so, do any of them notably improve in PvP?
I'm gonna save you some time (and me some characters!) by immediately pushing many of its recipients right off the raft.

• I think CLOYSTER actually prefers to hold on to a big closer like Hydro Pump rather than Liquidation, preferring to soften things up with Icy Wind and then go in for the kill. Pass.
  
• Similarly, all of the following prefer to keep existing movesets: SAMUROTT (Hydro Cannon/Megahorn), CARRACOSTA (Body Slam/Surf), BEARTIC (Ice Punch/Aqua Tail), EELEKTROSS (Dragon Claw/Crunch). All remain fringe at best.
  
• VAPOREON basically views Liquidation as a sidegrade to existing Scald, though Liquidation is NOT Legacy as Scald is, so it's worth it for any Vapes that don't have its old Community Day move. But Vaporeon remains mostly on the outside looking in at better Water types in various Leagues. No real boost here.
  
• GOLDUCK sees a slight bump with Liquidation, but remains just a spice play, at best.
  
• There is a reason you have never seen FLOATZEL in PvP... it has terrible charge moves. Bad, bad moves like Swift and Aqua Jet, with Hydro Pump as a passable closer but stymied due to average-at-best energy gains from Water Gun or Waterfall. Liquidation is in some ways just what the doctor ordered, but uh... Floatzel still sinks in PvP.
  
• ARMALDO remains a lost cause as well. If you want a GOOD Rocky Bug, use Crustle. If you want a spice one, go with the new Kleavor. If you want to just tank your ELO, THEN maybe consider Armaldo. That's about it though, even with the new move.
  

Man, quite a bummer, right? Decent move, but really nothing that gets it stands to benefit in a way that will impact PvP. So moving on then to... wait, what? I missed one? Oh... OH! So I did. And thankfully, we can end this section on a good note... because GOLISOPOD just became a bit more interesting.
Remember that when it was first released, it was a completely lost cause, with Fury Cutter, Metal Claw, and Waterfall as its clumsy fast moves, and underwhelming X-Scissor, **Aerial Ace, and somehow even worse Aqua Jet as its only charge moves. That left it in a very sad state. Eventually, it acquired Shadow Claw, which made it at least slightly interesting. And now comes the charge move it's been begging for, with Liquidation elevating it into spice territory, at the very least. Now you can potentially beat things like Charizard, Nidoqueen, Alolan Sandslash, Alolan Ninetales (Powder Snow), Talonflame, Cobalion, and Sylveon that you couldn't before, though even as bad as Aerial Ace is, giving it up means you generally now lose some Grasses like Venusaur and Virizion. Still though, things are looking up for Golisopod!
LONG STORY SHORT, while Liquidation is actually a nice addition to Water's arsenal (a clone of Crunch, including the debuff chance), the only thing that gets it initially that really looks to benefit is Golisopod. Stay tuned to what may get it down the road, though... most of its current recipients just have more problems than Liquidation alone can solve.

THE LEAF AGE BEGINS?

Probably haven't seen Bullet Punch in PvP much, have you? Scizor and Metagross use it, and uh... that's about the extent of it. But it's actually a pretty good PvP fast move, with the average 3.0 Damage Per Turn (DPT) but above average energy generation (3.5 EPT). And now here comes Leafage, an exact clone of Bullet Punch for the Grass typing. The number of things that get it is quite a bit smaller than Liquidation (only three evolutionary lines), but I think this is a clear case of quality over quantity in Leafage's favor.

• I could write an entire article on the injustices done to DECIDUEYE in Pokémon GO. All its interesting moves in MSG, and here it sits with underpowered Shadow Sneak, overpriced Energy Ball, and big but risky closer Brave Bird, and all locked behind low-energy Razor Leaf or arguably worst fast move in the game Astonish. #JusticeForDecidueye! While I do still hope for an eventual and LONG overdue buff to Astonish, for now the addition of Leafage should be a big help, right? Weeeeeeeell..... I mean, yes, it is most certainly better, and will become even a bit moreso when it eventually gets Frenzy Plant. But clearly, it's problems are not JUST the fast moves. Heck, pre-evolution DARTRIX (who has also been trapped behind Razor Leaf) even looks better than Deci in the here and now, thanks in large part to having Seed Bomb as a more workable second charge move to set up Brave Bird. It does seem that even though ROWLETT also gets Leafage, it may still prefer to keep existing Razor Leaf down in Little League, where Razor Leaf can admittedly be particularly dominant.
  
• LURANTIS (and Little League pre-evolution FOMANTIS) operates nicely right now as sort of a Jack of all trades with Fury Cutter (and its Bug damage output) powering up Leaf Blade and Superpower (well, Grass Knot in Fomantis' case). Superpower allows for some nutty wins like Bastiodon, Galarian Stunfisk, and excecuted properly, even Registeel, clearly showing Lurantis' appeal. So does Leafage help or disrupt the good Lurantis has already got going? Eh, I think we're gonna call it a sidegrade, though a tasty one for sure. Lurantis does give up a couple things where the effectiveness of Fury Cutter wins the day (Cresselia, Shadow Victreebel) and loses a little speed, which flips Shadow Alolan Sandslash to a loss. (Luratnis cannot hit a Leaf Blade AND followon Superpower in time with Leafage like it can with Fury Cutter.) But Leafage is able to carve out new wins like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Pelipper with superior neutral fast move damage (as opposed to resisted Bug damage), and also can outrace Walrein far more reliably. So not an upgrade, but a nice sidegrade like this can add some disruption into appropriate metas just fine.
  
• Speaking of disruption, let's check out ABOMASNOW. Obviously it runs more as an Ice than a Grass, humming along nicely in multiple metas with Powder Snow and Weather Ball (Ice) and Energy Ball for a big Grass closer when the situation calls for it. And more than likely, it will mostly continue in that configuration moving forward. BUT, Leafage may be preferred in certain metas now, at least, and not just because it now slams the door on Water types (instead of sometimes merely scraping by with Powder Snow). In Great League, where ShadowBama is usually preferred, Powder Snow continues to shine out, but it's worth noting that while Leafage is an overall downgrade, most of the wins it gives up are versus Flyers (Altaria, Noctowl, Skarmory, Mandibuzz), with new losses to Umbreon and Venusaur as the most notable exceptions. Leafage DOES make some new key contributions like Powder Alolan Ninetales and Galarian Stunfisk that may come more to the fore in Limited metas with, say, fewer Flyers? Just saying. In Ultra League, the biggest knock against Leafage is that it drops the Giratinas (as compared to Powder Snow), but otherwise Leafage makes a pretty strong case with pickups of Poliwrath, Walrein, and Alolan Ninetales (with Powder Snow OR Charm). I think Leafage deserves some real consideration at Ultra League level!
  

LONG STORY SHORT, no huge improvements to be found with Leafage, but it does earn a rightful place as a robust sidegrade consideration for the Lurantis and Abomasnow lines (particularly with Ultra League Aboma). It's an upgrade for the Rowlett/Dartrix/Decidueye line, though Deci itself remains middling at best until it one day gets Frenzy Plant (or just some more synergistic charge moves in general!). Leafage SHOULD start popping up here and there in PvP soon, moreso than Liquidation likely will.

JUST A BRUSH FIRE, REALLY

Honestly, I expected a number of things to get Mystical Fire after it recently entered the game, but for now, Niantic chose to distribute it to only two new Pokémon:

• As I mentioned in my analysis on Mystical Fire back during Delphox Community Day, DRIFBLIM is an intriguing choice. Mystical Fire and existing Blim coverage move Icy Wind share the same stats aside from typing, so this is almost the very definition of sidegrade... against neutral targets they do the exact same thing, so it just comes down to effectiveness. If Blim is facing something burnable (like a Steel, Ice, or Bug type), it will prefer to have Mystical Fire. For things weak to Ice, like Flyers and Dragons and Grounds, obviously it will want to be packing Icy Wind instead. (Grasses are weak to both Fire and Ice, so usually no change there, aside from things like Abomasnow with a subtyping that favors one or the other... in that case, Mystical Fire is double super effective and Icy Wind is merely neutral.) I'm not going to bother with the sims, as they're close to indistinguishable at a high level, but I WILL note that Mystical Fire can potentially beat Galarian Stunfisk at Ultra League level, and more definitely beats G-Fisk AND A-Slash, Skarmory, and even Registeel at Great League level, none of which Icy Wind can realistically hope to replicate. (Its only standouts are things like Gliscor.) Yes, giving up Icy Wind means completely abandoning hope versus things like Ghost-resistant Pidgeot and especially Noctowl, but overall? I think Drifblim might be getting much hotter soon, in several senses of the word! 🔥
  
• Not nearly as exciting, I admit, but note that LITWICK also gets Mystical Fire. It's really only for Little League use, and has been an interesting but lesser-used Fire type, falling behind things like Vulpix, Growlithe, and Tepig thanks to them having some good neutral coverage, while Litwick has been stuck with just Flame Charge and two other rather Fire charge moves. Mystical Fire slots in as a nearly straight upgrade with pickups that include Wynaut, Vullaby, Obstagoon (for LL Cups where it's allowed), and... Vulpix, regardless of which fast move 'Pix is using. Something to look forward to in the next Little League rotation!
  

LONG STORY SHORT, Mystical Fire IS likely the default coverage move of choice for Drifblim going forward, just because of the number of burnable things (as opposed to freezeable things) in its respective metas, Great League especially. Except to see Blim soar up a little higher than it has in a while. It's also a nice upgrade for Litwick, who should finally emerge as a true Fire contender in Little League formats.

ODDS AND ENDS

Going to put everything else together in this last main section, but don't mistake that to mean they're less important... quite the contrary! Just doing this because these are all one-offs, as opposed to the changes above which directly affected multiple Pokémon recipients.
Before I dive into the specific move additions, let's briefly review the existing moves that are being buffed or nerfed in this update.

• Icicle Spear - 60 power → 65 power. Obviously this only affects WALREIN (for now), and is obviously a strict upgrade, since the cost and all else remains the same, just more damage. Specifically, at a high level, I see Walrein picking up things like Skarmory and Umbreon (non-Shadow) and Trevenant, Pelipper, and Azumarill (Shadow) in Great League, and stuff like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Virizion in Ultra League. So yeah... you didn't need me to tell you this was an improvement, but maybe that helps you decide how much of an improvement and whether you want to turn back to Wally if you ever turned away before. I'd say Great League in particular has reason to fear it a bit more again.
  
• Poison Fang - 40 power → 45 power. More things affected by this than Icicle Spear, but obviously most of you just want to know about NIDOQUEEN, so in the interest of time and... well, interest, we'll just highlight her for now. Again, you don't need me to tell you this only makes things with Poison Fang better, but HOW much better? Honestly not too much changes in Great League (as far as straight wins a losses go, though this is undoubtedly scarier now!), but in Ultra League, I see new wins for Queen versus things like Charizard, Pidgeot, Cresselia, Dubwool, Obstagoon, AND Guzzlord, among others, so this is no small tweak! Might Nidoqueen be "back"? Only time will tell. Admittedly, what made it SO scary in the past was the cheaper cost of Poison Fang, and that hasn't changed, so I don't see it returning to full dominance like she once enjoyed. I also think she was treated rather harshly even before this buff... she didn't fall off quite as hard as many made it out to be. This will reveal that more fully... she's not so much "back" as much as I think she never really left. Also keep in mind things like GOLBAT/CROBAT and SALAZZLE/SALANDIT** that stand to benefit from this as well!
  
• Rollout - 4 power → 5 power. So low power that I can tell you this won't be a big shift, but obviously it DOES help. DUNSPARCE picks up a potential win over Shadow Alolan Ninetales (hey, Rollout is super effective, so....), and MILTANK a new win versus Shadow Swampert, of all things, and sometimes (Water Gun) Lanturn when utilizing Ice Beam instead of my personal recommendation of Thunderbolt (which beats Lanturn as well). It tends to prefer Tackle in Ultra League, though newly buffed Rollout is MUCH improved now with new wins versus Cresselia, Drapion, Umbreon, Alolan Muk, AND Walrein. Perhaps Tackle won't be the default now? As for ALOLAN GOLEM, Volt Switch just remains a much better move in nearly every scenario and meta. Stick with that, I say, and get all the Rock damage you need from the charge moves instead. 🪨
  
• Mud Bomb - 55 power → 60 power. The two big ones that come to mind are TOXICROAK and WHISCASH, the latter of which honestly needed a boost like this. However, this small a bump looks and feels like more of a "win more" where they already won more than anything. The only notable new win I see (at the high level this massive rebalance is demanding of little old me!) is Toxicroak versus Trevenant, though I think that's more due to Trevenant's nerf (which we'll get to in a moment) than Toxicroak's resisted Mud Bomb dealing a tiny bit more damage. (And upon further review, it may be neither of those and instead just come down to move timing.. but leaving Trevor in here as it's a good setup for later.) The big winner here is actually QUAGSIRE, who FINALLY gets a charge move cheaper than 55 energy to reach the same spam potential as its fellow Mud Boys. It's hard to show how this improves things in simulations, as they actually tend to favor Earthquake in many situations (such as in 1v1 shielding, where Quake shows additional wins against things like Azu, Sable, Swampert, and Umbreon), but the difference is more obvious when you go 2v2 shielding, and the extra spam of Mud Bomb shows out with new wins that include Froslass, Jellicent, Toxicroak, Shadow Alolan Ninetales, and Shadow Walrein. I actually don't know if this will actually bump up Quagsire's useage or not, though it's shot up about 60 slots to #15 in PvPoke's rankings. Not sure if that will match reality, but I DO think it's time to see if you have a good PvP Quag to perhaps take out for a spin and see. It certainly has some exciting new potential it's never had before!
  
• Seed Bomb - 55 power → 60 power, Energy Cost Increased. The only thing on this list that's not a straight upgrade, getting the same damage boost as Mud Bomb but increased cost to go with it... mostly, I feel, as a backdoor way to bring Trevenant down a bit. (And indeed, PvPoke has dropped Trev 25 slots from #10 to #35 in Ultra League, and down nearly 70 slots in Great League from Top 10 to outside the Top 70!) I certainly don't think Trevor will be going away -- it still breaks several cores across multiple Leagues -- but this is undoubtedly a hit. In Great League, it looks like it's now at a disadvantage against things it used to be able to beat like Walrein, Talonflame, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, and even Toxicroak. The hit is a bit less severe in Ultra League (where it can hang in longer to somewhat compensate for the increased energy needed), but it does still lose former wins like Jellicent and the re-buffed Nidoqueen. Most of the rest of the collateral damage will be felt in Little League, where several notable things have Seed Bomb (like Bulbasaur, Exeggcute, Oddish, etc.). Note much of note in bigger Leagues, though it IS noteworthy that WHIMSICOTT is getting Seed Bomb for the first time. And yes, I think it DOES become the favorite in most circumstances over existing Grass Knot, despite the latter being a "better" move (50 energy for 90 damage) and using that to get a couple unique wins still like Diggersby and Lickitung, because Seed Bomb brings new bait potential to set up big Moonblast wins over Cresselia, Pelipper, Toxicroak, Vigoroth, and Trevenant. Not sure Whimsie is suddenly going to bust out in Open Great League or anything, but I think it's very safe to say it just became a bit scarier and more versatile in Limited metas for sure.
  

And there are all the actual move "rebalances". Now to wrap it up real quick with a final list of existing moves now assigned to new Pokémon!

• PROBOPASS is in some ways similar to Defense Deoxys, in that it has long had three charge moves that seemed almost interchangeable in overall performance. Rock Slide is pretty standard for Probo, and most folks also run it with Thunderbolt, but it's so lackluster than even Magnet Bomb has always hung around as a viable alternative. Well that changes now, as its bulk allows it to make good use of new addition Zap Cannon. I think it and Rock Slide are the new standard, along with Spark to power them out, and that combo brings in new wins over Sableye and Umbreon, along with wider margins of victory over things it just scraped past before like Cresselia and Bastiodon. Probo used to escape them both with less than 10 HP, but now waddles away with quite a bit more than that. Not sure if this will send it up the charts (Bastiodon itself is still usually preferred), but it IS a more intriguing alternative now.
  
• Speaking of funky Rock types, HEATRAN can learn Earth Power now! But uh... you still don't want it, sorry. At least give it Incinerate, Niantic... c'mon!
  
• A MUCH more interesting Rock type is CRADILY, now getting some more speed with Rock Slide as a new alternative to Stone Edge. In my first blush analysis on the day of these many announced changes, I speculated that Cradily may want both Rock charge moves going forward, as it still beat things like Lanturn and even Swampert without needing Grass Knot. But in hindsight... nah, I think you want to instead just swap out Edge for Slide and be done with it. Keeping this short and sweet, here are some of my findings when comparing these side by side (by side): Grass Knot is absolutely needed to beat Diggersby, and is obviously the surest way to beat Waters and Ground (and/or Rock) types in general (including having ANY shot at beating up things like Galarian Stunfisk and Bastiodon). The raw power of Stone Edge is still the best way to punch out things like Alolan Ninetales, Lickitung, and Shadow Victreebel. But the speed of Rock Slide (10 less energy than Edge) adds the potential to now handle stuff like Cresselia, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, Venusaur, and most notably, Noctowl. That's right... Cradily now becomes a handy way to handle Lanturn AND Noctowl, among many others, and can also beat popular Sableye as well. Corebreaker potential on the rise. Dilly dilly!
  
• Look, URSALUNA continues to disappoint and likely always will until it gets a better fast move than Tackle. I know it, you know it, basically everyone but Niantic (and maybe TPCi) knows it. But as I wrote when Luna was first released, Ice Punch at least gives it the most bite of the three main elemental Punches, and until now it was the only one Ursaluna could not learn. Now it can! That gives it a bit more reach in Master League (the one League where it currently has any real play at all) with all the Dragons already. Specifically, Ice Punch allows it to now consistently beat Garchomp and Landorus, so that's nice. But come on, Niantic. Give the people what they want!.
  
• Let's be honest: the addition of Brutal Swing to the arsenal of TYRANITAR is more a cause of celebration for raiding than it is for PvP. (New top Dark type in PvE, I hear!) But yes, it DOES help in PvP too. Tyranitar has the size to work in Master League, but even with Brutal Swing, it's still an awkward fit. The one place I have seen it pop up here and there is actually in Great League, albeit in Limited metas only. While those opportunities are relatively rare, I am happy to report that Brutal Swing is a noted improvement over former best Crunch, adding on wins you would expect of a Dark type (Sableye, Cofagrigus, Jellicent) and a few you might not expect (Drapion, Toxapex, and finally it can beat Altaria!). Still more niche than meta, but at least it's an improving niche!
  
• And finally, we come to humble little EMOLGA, and the first non-Community Day recipient of Acrobatics. Long-time (or even some short-time!) readers have surely seen me write many times about Aerial Ace. It's a passable move -- barely -- dealing 55 damage for 45 energy. Boooooring, but it usually works JUST enough to not be total trash. It's a move I would LOVE to see buffed a little at some point, but it's also a move currently assigned to a massive number of Pokémon, and unlikely to change unless Niantic wants to REALLY shake up PvP. And like way too many Pokémon, poor Emolga has long been stuck with dull old Ace as its only Flying move, leaving what should be an exciting option languishing in obscurity. But now, finally, this mighty mouse may be about to soar! Just look at the HUGE names it can now beat: Medicham. Lickitung. Sableye. Shadow Swampert. Trevenant. Shadow Alolan Ninetales. And Cresselia and even Froslass for good measure. Those are some really big names, folks. Did Emolga just go from being afterthought behind Zapdos to passing it completely? I think it may have! If, like me, you've been holding on to a good one and just biding your time... well, that time is now, my friend! ⚡
  

Speaking of time, though... it's up! The new season is here! So we're gonna wrap it up right here for now. I hope this was as helpful a read as it was LONG. 🙃
Until next time, you can find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck this season, and catch you next time!

GO Battle League Season 15 is upon us, and along with it, our now-customary move rebalance! What's new, what's improved, what's good, bad, or ugly coming out the other side? Let's dive right in and see!
As per usual, Niantic has made us wait until the 11th hour for information on this coming season. (Thanks, Niantic... love you too! 😝) As is NOT usual for them of late, the rebalance taking place at the start of this new GBL season is massive, with no less than thirty three Pokémon being directly affected. Needless to say, this is going to be a lengthy analysis, so let's just dive right into it, shall we?

A FAIR WIND, OR GALE FORCE WINDS?

It might seem odd to lead off with a move given to only two new recipients, but CLEFABLE is no ordinary recipient. It has faded further and further into obscurity over time as other Fairies have risen up around it, having dropped out of the Top 5 Fairies in Ultra League and almost out of the Top 10 in Great League. It's still decently bulky, and still comes with the awesome Meteor Mash, which is not only cheaper than most charge moves found on various Charmers (that don't rhyme with "Aloe Van Pine Nails"), but is very widely unresisted and, critically in themed Cups where Clefable is eligible, super effective versus fellow Fairies, often delivering a knockout blow. The problem, of course, is that like other Charmers, you're unlikely to reach it in multiples, since Charm only generates a way below average 2.0 Energy Per Turn (EPT), tied for worst energy generation in the game. It also has Psychic for coverage, or Moonblast for big STAB damage, but the likelihood of reaching any of those in a critical spot is rather low since Charm is just SO slow to get there. So it has sat, languishing, as other interesting Charmers have come along and is now, at best, just part of a growing pack of similiar Pokémon.
That ALL changes with the addition of Fairy Wind and its 4.5 EPT. Not only does this allow it to finally break away from the pack and make its own unique mark, but it works REALLY well with its moves. Spamming a Meteor Mash every 6 seconds (or thanks to carryover energy, just 5 seconds between the second and third Mash) sounds pretty good to me! And indeed, as compared to Charm, you can see immediate improvement in Great League, with new wins against Noctowl (!!!), Azumarill, Froslass, Diggersby, Alolan Ninetales, and somehow even Fairy slayer Shadow Victreebel by slamming it with two Meteor Mashes. Even after all that, though, it remains underwater overall as far as win/loss record goes, though beating Medicham and Noctowl and all else that you'd expect of a good Fairy give it some great corebreaking potential.
For the eye-popping numbers, we actually turn to Ultra League, where Clef turns from this into this. Yes, that IS more than double its former win total (and a jump from under 30% winrate to now 60%!), with those new wins coming versus Walrein, A-Ninetales, Sylveon, Aurorus, Cobalion, Dubwool, Snorlax, Drapion, DDeoxys, and even resists-all-of-Clefable's-moves Escavalier! And if its relatively high XL cost is scaring you, fear not... you can build a hundo to 2499 CP and miss out only on Walrein and Greedent, for what that's worth. Put simply, Clefable is one of the biggest winners in this rebalance, moving from a previous rank of #145 in Open UL all the way up now to #28, with Tapu Fini being the only Fairy ranked higher!

• More of a footnote is TOGETIC, which now also learns Fairy Wind, and boy did it need that. Previously having to rely on the mostly awful Hidden Power (in which case you usually had to hope to get lucky with Flying type H.P.) or the subpar Extrasensory, it was left looking quite pitiful. But now, at least it could be spice in the right meta, maybe.
  
• WIGGLYTUFF did not get Fairy Wind, but it is receiving Disarming Voice, a move I've been wishing would be more widely distributed for years. A Fairy-type clone of moves like Psyshock, Magnet Bomb, and Foul Play, it's a more-than-passable move, and quietly the cheapest one that Fairy has available...15 less energy than Play Rough and Moonblast, and better Damage Per Energy {DPE} than the former. Anyway, seeing as Wigglytuff currently relies on Play Rough, Voice likely now slots in as its replacement for a little more shield pressure and new wins like Azumarill and Lickitung. The needle doesn't move too much, but the improvement is still appreciated!
  
• PRIMARINA also gets Voice, but it doesn't really help it... yet. Prima IS a little underrated in Master League, where its Water typing is much more help (resisting Ice, Fire, Water) than hindrance (very little Grass and Electric around to exploit it). But it won't really take off until it also eventually gets Hydro Cannon... sometime in 2025? At that point, it will appreciate having cheap Disarming Voice alongside Cannon more, I think.
  

LONG STORY SHORT, Fairy Wind Clefable is one of those rather rare overnight sensations that could see an immediate usage spike in Ultra League and as a nice corebreaker in Great League (the pickup against Noctowl really pushing it over the top). It really appreciates the extra energy to spam charge moves, and has just enough variety between Meteor Mash, Psychic (the move!), and Moonblast to keep the opponent guessing and shielding when they really don't want to. The other Fairies with new toys (Togetic and Wigglytuff especially) appreciate small bumps in performance, but are unlikely to suddenly appear where they weren't already.

DRILL RUNNIN' 🔥

As with Fairy Wind, there are only two new recipients of Drill Run, but both are very interesting.
We'll start with ALOLAN SANDSLASH. It sees some play already in both Great (including the Shadow variant and Ultra Leagues, usually with former Community Day move Shadow Claw to give it a unique profile, and spammy Ice Punch and typically Bulldoze for coverage. Bulldoze has excellent coverage (primarily versus Rocks, Steels, and Fires that give A-Slash a lot of trouble otherwise), but isn't a very good move (60 energy for only 80 damage). Drill Run is a strict upgrade, dealing the same 80 Ground-type damage for only 45 energy, a big savings.
Looking simply at simulation numbers, Drill Run doesn't seem to be a great improvement in Great or Ultra, with just occasional new wins popping up like UL Scizor or GL Alolan Marowak in certain shielding scenarios. But this goes beyond the numbers. Those who already use and love A-Slash will greatly appreciate the extra pressure that comes with Drill Run, as it can now be sprung for just 5 more energy than Ice Punch, making each shielding decision that much sweatier for the opponent. Even without STAB, Drill Run still deals quite a bit more damage than Ice Punch versus neutral targets, so this isn't just for strict coverage either. In every way, this makes Alolan Sandslash better, and better at covering its backside. I think players that don't already use A-Slash may come to better appreciate and respect it now too, and perhaps not just in Limited metas!
Perhaps even more interesting (and, frankly, unexpected) is DEWGONG, the poor WateIce type that has NEVER had a move rebalance other than taking its two best moves (Ice Shard and Icy Wind) away. Niantic has finally given it a LOT of love in this update, with Drill Run providing new coverage, and new move Liquidation finally giving it a viable Water move too. (Water Pulse and Aqua Jet are both terrible, folks... so much so that I've always recommended Blizzard as Dewgong's second move. For example, did you know that it tends to lose to Alolan Marowak with super effective Pulse but actually wins with resisted Blizzard?!) Anyway, I do think you want to definitely keep Icy Wind, so then your choice becomes Drill Run to have a shot at things like Froslass, Toxicroak, Lanturn (with Water Gun), and the aforementioned Alolan Marowak, or Liquidation to better outrace Skarmory and Alolan Ninetales? Either way, you get things like Azumarill and Dunsparce now, and still beat things that don't show in those sims like Swampert and Sableye by remaining fully commited to Icy Wind spam. And while you don't see a lot of new Rock or Steel or Fire wins popping up, Drill Run especially gives them all serious pause, forcing them to shield where they really never had to worry about it much before. (Because, again, Water Pulse is awful.)
So not really a great case for Liquidation here, but this is at least a way to transition into covering that move more fully next!
LONG STORY SHORT, both Dewgong and Alolan Sandslash immediately get better (and get better coverage) with Drill Run in the mix. I think it will be their preferred secondary/closing move going forward, and both will see a bump in play.

LIQUIDATION... GOING OUT OF BUSINESS ALREADY?

So about that new move Liquidation. It's a good if not fantastic move, an exact clone of Crunch... same cost (45 energy), damage (70), and potential debuff (30% chance to reduce the opponent's Defense). Not game breaking, but very, very solid.
But the real question is... do any of the things that recieve it really want it, and if so, do any of them notably improve in PvP?
I'm gonna save you some time (and me some characters!) by immediately pushing many of its recipients right off the raft.

• I think CLOYSTER actually prefers to hold on to a big closer like Hydro Pump rather than Liquidation, preferring to soften things up with Icy Wind and then go in for the kill. Pass.
  
• Similarly, all of the following prefer to keep existing movesets: SAMUROTT (Hydro Cannon/Megahorn), CARRACOSTA (Body Slam/Surf), BEARTIC (Ice Punch/Aqua Tail), EELEKTROSS (Dragon Claw/Crunch). All remain fringe at best.
  
• VAPOREON basically views Liquidation as a sidegrade to existing Scald, though Liquidation is NOT Legacy as Scald is, so it's worth it for any Vapes that don't have its old Community Day move. But Vaporeon remains mostly on the outside looking in at better Water types in various Leagues. No real boost here.
  
• GOLDUCK sees a slight bump with Liquidation, but remains just a spice play, at best.
  
• There is a reason you have never seen FLOATZEL in PvP... it has terrible charge moves. Bad, bad moves like Swift and Aqua Jet, with Hydro Pump as a passable closer but stymied due to average-at-best energy gains from Water Gun or Waterfall. Liquidation is in some ways just what the doctor ordered, but uh... Floatzel still sinks in PvP.
  
• ARMALDO remains a lost cause as well. If you want a GOOD Rocky Bug, use Crustle. If you want a spice one, go with the new Kleavor. If you want to just tank your ELO, THEN maybe consider Armaldo. That's about it though, even with the new move.
  

Man, quite a bummer, right? Decent move, but really nothing that gets it stands to benefit in a way that will impact PvP. So moving on then to... wait, what? I missed one? Oh... OH! So I did. And thankfully, we can end this section on a good note... because GOLISOPOD just became a bit more interesting.
Remember that when it was first released, it was a completely lost cause, with Fury Cutter, Metal Claw, and Waterfall as its clumsy fast moves, and underwhelming X-Scissor, Aerial Ace, and somehow even worse Aqua Jet as its only charge moves. That left it in a very sad state. Eventually, it acquired Shadow Claw, which made it at least slightly interesting. And now comes the charge move it's been begging for, with Liquidation elevating it into spice territory, at the very least. Now you can potentially beat things like Charizard, Nidoqueen, Alolan Sandslash, Alolan Ninetales (Powder Snow), Talonflame, Cobalion, and Sylveon that you couldn't before, though even as bad as Aerial Ace is, giving it up means you generally now lose some Grasses like Venusaur and Virizion. Still though, things are looking up for Golisopod!
LONG STORY SHORT, while Liquidation is actually a nice addition to Water's arsenal (a clone of Crunch, including the debuff chance), the only thing that gets it initially that really looks to benefit is Golisopod. Stay tuned to what may get it down the road, though... most of its current recipients just have more problems than Liquidation alone can solve.

THE LEAF AGE BEGINS?

Probably haven't seen Bullet Punch in PvP much, have you? Scizor and Metagross use it, and uh... that's about the extent of it. But it's actually a pretty good PvP fast move, with the average 3.0 Damage Per Turn (DPT) but above average energy generation (3.5 EPT). And now here comes Leafage, an exact clone of Bullet Punch for the Grass typing. The number of things that get it is quite a bit smaller than Liquidation (only three evolutionary lines), but I think this is a clear case of quality over quantity in Leafage's favor.

• I could write an entire article on the injustices done to DECIDUEYE in Pokémon GO. All its interesting moves in MSG, and here it sits with underpowered Shadow Sneak, overpriced Energy Ball, and big but risky closer Brave Bird, and all locked behind low-energy Razor Leaf or arguably worst fast move in the game Astonish. #JusticeForDecidueye! While I do still hope for an eventual and LONG overdue buff to Astonish, for now the addition of Leafage should be a big help, right? Weeeeeeeell..... I mean, yes, it is most certainly better, and will become even a bit moreso when it eventually gets Frenzy Plant. But clearly, it's problems are not JUST the fast moves. Heck, pre-evolution DARTRIX (who has also been trapped behind Razor Leaf) even looks better than Deci in the here and now, thanks in large part to having Seed Bomb as a more workable second charge move to set up Brave Bird. It does seem that even though ROWLETT also gets Leafage, it may still prefer to keep existing Razor Leaf down in Little League, where Razor Leaf can admittedly be particularly dominant.
  
• LURANTIS (and Little League pre-evolution FOMANTIS) operates nicely right now as sort of a Jack of all trades with Fury Cutter (and its Bug damage output) powering up Leaf Blade and Superpower (well, Grass Knot in Fomantis' case). Superpower allows for some nutty wins like Bastiodon, Galarian Stunfisk, and excecuted properly, even Registeel, clearly showing Lurantis' appeal. So does Leafage help or disrupt the good Lurantis has already got going? Eh, I think we're gonna call it a sidegrade, though a tasty one for sure. Lurantis does give up a couple things where the effectiveness of Fury Cutter wins the day (Cresselia, Shadow Victreebel) and loses a little speed, which flips Shadow Alolan Sandslash to a loss. (Luratnis cannot hit a Leaf Blade AND followon Superpower in time with Leafage like it can with Fury Cutter.) But Leafage is able to carve out new wins like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Pelipper with superior neutral fast move damage (as opposed to resisted Bug damage), and also can outrace Walrein far more reliably. So not an upgrade, but a nice sidegrade like this can add some disruption into appropriate metas just fine.
  
• Speaking of disruption, let's check out ABOMASNOW. Obviously it runs more as an Ice than a Grass, humming along nicely in multiple metas with Powder Snow and Weather Ball (Ice) and Energy Ball for a big Grass closer when the situation calls for it. And more than likely, it will mostly continue in that configuration moving forward. BUT, Leafage may be preferred in certain metas now, at least, and not just because it now slams the door on Water types (instead of sometimes merely scraping by with Powder Snow). In Great League, where ShadowBama is usually preferred, Powder Snow continues to shine out, but it's worth noting that while Leafage is an overall downgrade, most of the wins it gives up are versus Flyers (Altaria, Noctowl, Skarmory, Mandibuzz), with new losses to Umbreon and Venusaur as the most notable exceptions. Leafage DOES make some new key contributions like Powder Alolan Ninetales and Galarian Stunfisk that may come more to the fore in Limited metas with, say, fewer Flyers? Just saying. In Ultra League, the biggest knock against Leafage is that it drops the Giratinas (as compared to Powder Snow), but otherwise Leafage makes a pretty strong case with pickups of Poliwrath, Walrein, and Alolan Ninetales (with Powder Snow OR Charm). I think Leafage deserves some real consideration at Ultra League level!
  

LONG STORY SHORT, no huge improvements to be found with Leafage, but it does earn a rightful place as a robust sidegrade consideration for the Lurantis and Abomasnow lines (particularly with Ultra League Aboma). It's an upgrade for the Rowlett/Dartrix/Decidueye line, though Deci itself remains middling at best until it one day gets Frenzy Plant (or just some more synergistic charge moves in general!). Leafage SHOULD start popping up here and there in PvP soon, moreso than Liquidation likely will.

JUST A BRUSH FIRE, REALLY

Honestly, I expected a number of things to get Mystical Fire after it recently entered the game, but for now, Niantic chose to distribute it to only two new Pokémon:

• As I mentioned in my analysis on Mystical Fire back during Delphox Community Day, DRIFBLIM is an intriguing choice. Mystical Fire and existing Blim coverage move Icy Wind share the same stats aside from typing, so this is almost the very definition of sidegrade... against neutral targets they do the exact same thing, so it just comes down to effectiveness. If Blim is facing something burnable (like a Steel, Ice, or Bug type), it will prefer to have Mystical Fire. For things weak to Ice, like Flyers and Dragons and Grounds, obviously it will want to be packing Icy Wind instead. (Grasses are weak to both Fire and Ice, so usually no change there, aside from things like Abomasnow with a subtyping that favors one or the other... in that case, Mystical Fire is double super effective and Icy Wind is merely neutral.) I'm not going to bother with the sims, as they're close to indistinguishable at a high level, but I WILL note that Mystical Fire can potentially beat Galarian Stunfisk at Ultra League level, and more definitely beats G-Fisk AND A-Slash, Skarmory, and even Registeel at Great League level, none of which Icy Wind can realistically hope to replicate. (Its only standouts are things like Gliscor.) Yes, giving up Icy Wind means completely abandoning hope versus things like Ghost-resistant Pidgeot and especially Noctowl, but overall? I think Drifblim might be getting much hotter soon, in several senses of the word! 🔥
  
• Not nearly as exciting, I admit, but note that LITWICK also gets Mystical Fire. It's really only for Little League use, and has been an interesting but lesser-used Fire type, falling behind things like Vulpix, Growlithe, and Tepig thanks to them having some good neutral coverage, while Litwick has been stuck with just Flame Charge and two other rather Fire charge moves. Mystical Fire slots in as a nearly straight upgrade with pickups that include Wynaut, Vullaby, Obstagoon (for LL Cups where it's allowed), and... Vulpix, regardless of which fast move 'Pix is using. Something to look forward to in the next Little League rotation!
  

LONG STORY SHORT, Mystical Fire IS likely the default coverage move of choice for Drifblim going forward, just because of the number of burnable things (as opposed to freezeable things) in its respective metas, Great League especially. Except to see Blim soar up a little higher than it has in a while. It's also a nice upgrade for Litwick, who should finally emerge as a true Fire contender in Little League formats.

ODDS AND ENDS

Going to put everything else together in this last main section, but don't mistake that to mean they're less important... quite the contrary! Just doing this because these are all one-offs, as opposed to the changes above which directly affected multiple Pokémon recipients.
Before I dive into the specific move additions, let's briefly review the existing moves that are being buffed or nerfed in this update.

• Icicle Spear - 60 power → 65 power. Obviously this only affects WALREIN (for now), and is obviously a strict upgrade, since the cost and all else remains the same, just more damage. Specifically, at a high level, I see Walrein picking up things like Skarmory and Umbreon (non-Shadow) and Trevenant, Pelipper, and Azumarill (Shadow) in Great League, and stuff like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Virizion in Ultra League. So yeah... you didn't need me to tell you this was an improvement, but maybe that helps you decide how much of an improvement and whether you want to turn back to Wally if you ever turned away before. I'd say Great League in particular has reason to fear it a bit more again.
  
• Poison Fang - 40 power → 45 power. More things affected by this than Icicle Spear, but obviously most of you just want to know about NIDOQUEEN, so in the interest of time and... well, interest, we'll just highlight her for now. Again, you don't need me to tell you this only makes things with Poison Fang better, but HOW much better? Honestly not too much changes in Great League (as far as straight wins a losses go, though this is undoubtedly scarier now!), but in Ultra League, I see new wins for Queen versus things like Charizard, Pidgeot, Cresselia, Dubwool, Obstagoon, AND Guzzlord, among others, so this is no small tweak! Might Nidoqueen be "back"? Only time will tell. Admittedly, what made it SO scary in the past was the cheaper cost of Poison Fang, and that hasn't changed, so I don't see it returning to full dominance like she once enjoyed. I also think she was treated rather harshly even before this buff... she didn't fall off quite as hard as many made it out to be. This will reveal that more fully... she's not so much "back" as much as I think she never really left. Also keep in mind things like GOLBAT/CROBAT and SALAZZLE/SALANDIT that stand to benefit from this as well!
  
• Rollout - 4 power → 5 power. So low power that I can tell you this won't be a big shift, but obviously it DOES help. DUNSPARCE picks up a potential win over Shadow Alolan Ninetales (hey, Rollout is super effective, so....), and MILTANK a new win versus Shadow Swampert, of all things, and sometimes (Water Gun) Lanturn when utilizing Ice Beam instead of my personal recommendation of Thunderbolt (which beats Lanturn as well). It tends to prefer Tackle in Ultra League, though newly buffed Rollout is MUCH improved now with new wins versus Cresselia, Drapion, Umbreon, Alolan Muk, AND Walrein. Perhaps Tackle won't be the default now? As for ALOLAN GOLEM, Volt Switch just remains a much better move in nearly every scenario and meta. Stick with that, I say, and get all the Rock damage you need from the charge moves instead. 🪨
  
• Mud Bomb - 55 power → 60 power. The two big ones that come to mind are TOXICROAK and WHISCASH, the latter of which honestly needed a boost like this. However, this small a bump looks and feels like more of a "win more" where they already won more than anything. The only notable new win I see (at the high level this massive rebalance is demanding of little old me!) is Toxicroak versus Trevenant, though I think that's more due to Trevenant's nerf (which we'll get to in a moment) than Toxicroak's resisted Mud Bomb dealing a tiny bit more damage. (And upon further review, it may be neither of those and instead just come down to move timing.. but leaving Trevor in here as it's a good setup for later.) The big winner here is actually QUAGSIRE, who FINALLY gets a charge move cheaper than 55 energy to reach the same spam potential as its fellow Mud Boys. It's hard to show how this improves things in simulations, as they actually tend to favor Earthquake in many situations (such as in 1v1 shielding, where Quake shows additional wins against things like Azu, Sable, Swampert, and Umbreon), but the difference is more obvious when you go 2v2 shielding, and the extra spam of Mud Bomb shows out with new wins that include Froslass, Jellicent, Toxicroak, Shadow Alolan Ninetales, and Shadow Walrein. I actually don't know if this will actually bump up Quagsire's useage or not, though it's shot up about 60 slots to #15 in PvPoke's rankings. Not sure if that will match reality, but I DO think it's time to see if you have a good PvP Quag to perhaps take out for a spin and see. It certainly has some exciting new potential it's never had before!
  
• Seed Bomb - 55 power → 60 power, Energy Cost Increased. The only thing on this list that's not a straight upgrade, getting the same damage boost as Mud Bomb but increased cost to go with it... mostly, I feel, as a backdoor way to bring Trevenant down a bit. (And indeed, PvPoke has dropped Trev 25 slots from #10 to #35 in Ultra League, and down nearly 70 slots in Great League from Top 10 to outside the Top 70!) I certainly don't think Trevor will be going away -- it still breaks several cores across multiple Leagues -- but this is undoubtedly a hit. In Great League, it looks like it's now at a disadvantage against things it used to be able to beat like Walrein, Talonflame, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, and even Toxicroak. The hit is a bit less severe in Ultra League (where it can hang in longer to somewhat compensate for the increased energy needed), but it does still lose former wins like Jellicent and the re-buffed Nidoqueen. Most of the rest of the collateral damage will be felt in Little League, where several notable things have Seed Bomb (like Bulbasaur, Exeggcute, Oddish, etc.). Note much of note in bigger Leagues, though it IS noteworthy that WHIMSICOTT is getting Seed Bomb for the first time. And yes, I think it DOES become the favorite in most circumstances over existing Grass Knot, despite the latter being a "better" move (50 energy for 90 damage) and using that to get a couple unique wins still like Diggersby and Lickitung, because Seed Bomb brings new bait potential to set up big Moonblast wins over Cresselia, Pelipper, Toxicroak, Vigoroth, and Trevenant. Not sure Whimsie is suddenly going to bust out in Open Great League or anything, but I think it's very safe to say it just became a bit scarier and more versatile in Limited metas for sure.
  

And there are all the actual move "rebalances". Now to wrap it up real quick with a final list of existing moves now assigned to new Pokémon!

• PROBOPASS is in some ways similar to Defense Deoxys, in that it has long had three charge moves that seemed almost interchangeable in overall performance. Rock Slide is pretty standard for Probo, and most folks also run it with Thunderbolt, but it's so lackluster than even Magnet Bomb has always hung around as a viable alternative. Well that changes now, as its bulk allows it to make good use of new addition Zap Cannon. I think it and Rock Slide are the new standard, along with Spark to power them out, and that combo brings in new wins over Sableye and Umbreon, along with wider margins of victory over things it just scraped past before like Cresselia and Bastiodon. Probo used to escape them both with less than 10 HP, but now waddles away with quite a bit more than that. Not sure if this will send it up the charts (Bastiodon itself is still usually preferred), but it IS a more intriguing alternative now.
  
• HEATRAN can learn Earth Power now! But uh... you still don't want it, sorry. At least give it Incinerate, Niantic... c'mon!
  
• A MUCH more interesting Rock type is CRADILY, now getting some more speed with Rock Slide as a new alternative to Stone Edge. In my first blush analysis on the day of these many announced changes, I speculated that Cradily may want both Rock charge moves going forward, as it still beat things like Lanturn and even Swampert without needing Grass Knot. But in hindsight... nah, I think you want to instead just swap out Edge for Slide and be done with it. Keeping this short and sweet, here are some of my findings when comparing these side by side (by side): Grass Knot is absolutely needed to beat Diggersby, and is obviously the surest way to beat Waters and Ground (and/or Rock) types in general (including having ANY shot at beating up things like Galarian Stunfisk and Bastiodon). The raw power of Stone Edge is still the best way to punch out things like Alolan Ninetales, Lickitung, and Shadow Victreebel. But the speed of Rock Slide (10 less energy than Edge) adds the potential to now handle stuff like Cresselia, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, Venusaur, and most notably, Noctowl. That's right... Cradily now becomes a handy way to handle Lanturn AND Noctowl, among many others, and can also beat popular Sableye as well. Corebreaker potential on the rise. Dilly dilly!
  
• Look, URSALUNA continues to disappoint and likely always will until it gets a better fast move than Tackle. I know it, you know it, basically everyone but Niantic (and maybe TPCi) knows it. But as I wrote when Luna was first released, Ice Punch at least gives it the most bite of the three main elemental Punches, and until now it was the only one Ursaluna could not learn. Now it can! That gives it a bit more reach in Master League (the one League where it currently has any real play at all) with all the Dragons already. Specifically, Ice Punch allows it to now consistently beat Garchomp and Landorus, so that's nice. But come on, Niantic. Give the people what they want!.
  
• Let's be honest: the addition of Brutal Swing to the arsenal of TYRANITAR is more a cause of celebration for raiding than it is for PvP. (New top Dark type in PvE, I hear!) But yes, it DOES help in PvP too. Tyranitar has the size to work in Master League, but even with Brutal Swing, it's still an awkward fit. The one place I have seen it pop up here and there is actually in Great League, albeit in Limited metas only. While those opportunities are relatively rare, I am happy to report that Brutal Swing is a noted improvement over former best Crunch, adding on wins you would expect of a Dark type (Sableye, Cofagrigus, Jellicent) and a few you might not expect (Drapion, Toxapex, and finally it can beat Altaria!). Still more niche than meta, but at least it's an improving niche!
  
• And finally, we come to humble little EMOLGA, and the first non-Community Day recipient of Acrobatics. Long-time (or even some short-time!) readers have surely seen me write many times about Aerial Ace. It's a passable move -- barely -- dealing 55 damage for 45 energy. Boooooring, but it usually works JUST enough to not be total trash. It's a move I would LOVE to see buffed a little at some point, but it's also a move currently assigned to a massive number of Pokémon, and unlikely to change unless Niantic wants to REALLY shake up PvP. And like way too many Pokémon, poor Emolga has long been stuck with dull old Ace as its only Flying move, leaving what should be an exciting option languishing in obscurity. But now, finally, this mighty mouse may be about to soar! Just look at the HUGE names it can now beat: Medicham. Lickitung. Sableye. Shadow Swampert. Trevenant. Shadow Alolan Ninetales. And Cresselia and even Froslass for good measure. Those are some really big names, folks. Did Emolga just go from being afterthought behind Zapdos to passing it completely? I think it may have! If, like me, you've been holding on to a good one and just biding your time... well, that time is now, my friend! ⚡
  

Speaking of time, though... it's up! The new season is here! So we're gonna wrap it up right here for now. I hope this was as helpful a read as it was LONG. 🙃
Until next time, you can find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck this season, and catch you next time!

Lots of New Inventory, figured i’d post again
All of these are up for the cheapest price on Discogs (for their condition, sometimes by considerable amounts) and are CHEAPER here than I have them there. Feel free to try and price match me with any legit sellers I am flexible and truly believe these are all great deals. Happy to work out bundle deals on 3+ depending on the purchase amount.
Shipping is $6 to the US, No matter the size of the order! International DM for rate. If you want more specifics on what pressing it is and what not here is the link to my Discogs. https://www.discogs.com/selle66Records/profile
The Acacia Strain - 'C' (7' Single, Limited, White w/ Olive Green Splatter) NM/NM - $28
Agnostic Front - United Blood (7' EP, 2009 Reissue, Clear) NM/NM - $15
Archspire - Bleed the Future (Original Cassette) NM/NM - $28
Arkaik - Nemethia (LP, Blue and Gold Swirl) NM/NM - $42
Asobi Seksu - Fluorescence (LP, Limited Pink) NM/VG+ - $10
Babymetal - Metal Resistance - The One- (Limited ED Boxset with CD and Bluray) VG+/VG+ - $35
Bauhaus - Burning from the Inside (LP, Blue, Reissue) VG+/VG+ - $17
Beatles - Yesterday and Today (1983 Reissue) G+/VG - $12
Beatles - Revolver (1983 Reissue, IN SHRINK) VG+/NM - $25
Childish Gambino - Because The Internet (Pink Target Exclusive) NM/VG+ - $35
Childish Gambino - Awaken, My Love! (Blue Walmart Exclusive) NM/VG+ - $18
Courtney Bartnett - Things Take Time (LP, Blue) NM/VG+ - $12
The Cure - Faith (RSD Limited Numbered Gray vinyl) NM/NM - $80
Dance With The Dead - Loved to Death (LP, Clear, Repress) NM/NM - $55
David Gilmour - David Gilmour (LP, Promo, OG) G+/VG+ - $10
DIIV - Oshin (LP, Purple, Limited Reissue) NM/VG+ - $32
Dyscarnate - With all their might (LP, Bronze) VG+/VG+ - $18
Echo & The Bunnymen - Bedbugs and Ballyhoo (12' Maxi, OG) VG+/VG+ - $5
Enslaved - Heimdal (LP, limited Black white marble, sealed) - M/M $30
Fit for an Autopsy - Oh what the future holds (LP, Blue Green Swirl with Pink Black Splatter, Sealed) M/M - $15
Fit for an Autopsy - Hellbound (LP, Limited, Bronze) - $30
Genghis Tron - Board up the House (LP, One etched Side, original) VG/VG+ - $18
George Clanton - Slide (LP, 2nd Press, Black with Blue Swirl) VG+/VG+ - $28
Ghost - Seven Inches of Satanic Panic (First Press Black 7’) NM/VG+ - $22
Gloom Influx - Twilight (Limited, Purple) NM/NM - $30
Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F (Lost 77' Mixes) (LP, Reissue, Limited Edition, Pink and black) NM/NM - $35
Hour of Penance - Paradogma (LP, Yellow) NM/NM - $32
J Dilla - Donuts (2x12, 2016 10th anniversary edition) VG+/VG+ - $37
John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band - Plastic Ono Band (2021 Reissue) VG+/VG+ - $20
Kanye West - The College Dropout (Most recent reissue) NM/VG+ - $15
Kraut - An Adjustment to Society (Red Reissue) G+/G+ - $10
Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over The Country Club (Black Gatefold) NM/VG+ - $15
1985 Walt Disneys Fantasia - (2xLP, Gatefold) VG+/VG+ - $8
Michael Jackson - Got to be There (Original with hype sticker) G+/VG+ - $8
MICROCHIP TERROR - Illegal Experiments (LP, White red splatter) - $30
Modern Baseball - You’re Gonna Miss it All (Yellow) NM/NM - $20
Nails - You Will Never Be One of Us (Green Casette) VG+/VG+ - $10
Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine (180gm reissue) NM/VG+ - $18
NOFX - Pods and Gods (7’ EP Orange) NM/VG - $5
Pearl Jam Christmas 1998 (7’ promo) VG/VG+ - $25
Pearl Jam - Someday at Christmas (7’) VG+/VG+ -$8
Pearl Jam 2002 Annual Vinyl Single (7’ Promo) -$4
Pearl Jam - Christmas 1999 (7) G+/VG+ -$10
Primus - Sailing the Seas of Cheese (LP, Reissue, 200G) VG+/VG - $28
Rings of Saturn - Gidim (Cassette, Purple, sealed) M/M - $28
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Blu Ray and Vinyl Pack, shrink torn a little, but sealed) M/NM - $45
Rush - Hemispheres (LP, Original, PRC) VG+/VG+ - $18
Rush 2112 (LP, early reissue, gatefold) VG (lower end)/VG+ - $9
Scour - Black (10’ Marbled) M/NM - $23
Sematary Grave Man - Butcher House (CD) NM/VG+ - $80
Sick of it All - Death to Tyrants (LP, tricolored, limited 2014 reissue) VG+/VG+ - $21
Sick of it All - Last Act of Defiance (LP, limited, clear +CD) NM/VG+ - $18
Slipknot - Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses (2xlp, black, rare first press) NM/VG - $120 ($120 UNDER MEDIAN)
Soundgarden - Superunkown (Original US Clear) NM/VG - $225
Spelling - The Turning Wheel (2LP Green /300) - NM/VG+ - $50
Steely Dan - Greatest Hits (Canadian Yellow 70’s pressing) VG/G+ - $15
Sylvester - Someone Like You (original 12', keith harring art) NM/NM - $16
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Runaway Girls (7’ Blue) VG+/VG - $15
Weather Report - Heavy Weather (Music on Vinyl Reissue, 180g) NM/NM - $22
Within Destruction - Deathwish (LP, Red) VG+/VG+ - $35

So, here's the thing. Right now, OpenAI has a HUGE edge against everyone else, because it has spent hundreds of millions training GPT-4, which is, by far, the best AI out there. As such, many here seem to believe that the AI battle is only one that can be fought by major companies, and that whoever throws more money at it will keep having the edge. As such, when they hear Sam talking about the dangers of AI, or signing these AI safety claims, or not open sourcing, they think it is just the typical CEO bullshit trying to keep a monopoly or whatever. They don't even fathom the idea that perhaps, just perhaps... he is actually worried? Not because he is a saint or something. But because he has seen shit. So, now, I'll convince you why that is, indeed, the case.
As you may or may not know, LLMs are sub-optimal. That means that they can learn and generalize, but with a quadratic scaling complexity that makes them prohibitively expensive to train. Training GPT-4 took hundreds of million dollars. Not only that, it basically exhausted all the high-quality internet content it could be trained on. Scaling it further wouldn't even be possible without a 10x larger internet, based on data alone.
But, the problem is exactly that: scaling. Right now, there this widespread feeling that an O(N*log(N)) solution is right around the corner. Or, even worse, perhaps it has already been figured out. Claude+, for example, seems to have almost GPT-4 performance, while being essentially instant, pointing it is doing inference in O(N*log(N)). Of course, its performance is shit, but the point is: all these papers and new AIs strongly hint we're very close to breaking the quadratic barrier in general. But why is that a big deal? What would that imply?
Well, I'll tell you what: chaos. The thing is: the only thing making GPT-4 cost millions to train is that quadratic barrier. Once it is broken, that would bring down the cost of training GPT-4 to... a few dollars. Yes, you read it right. We're one algorithmic breakthrough away from being able to re-train GPT-4, from scratch, in a consumer laptop, in a few minutes. This is no sci-fi claim. We already know GPT-4 exists. It can replicate human reasoning, even if limited. It can generate new knowledge, prove new theorems. So, it is just a matter of optimization. And, given how contrived transformers are, that optimization is very, very likely to exist. Do you see where I'm getting at?
If no, let me make it simpler: as soon as someone figures and publishes an open-source AI that is capable of scaling inO(N*log(N)), all bets are off. That will imply anyone will be able to train a GPT-4, from scratch, in a consumer laptop. And, no, that doesn't mean you'll be running GPT-4 on your Macbook. That means you'll be running GPT-500 on it! That's because the fact it is so expensive to train/infer is the only thing preventing it from producing new knowledge, which, in turn, is the only thing putting that "4" there. Without that barrier, there is no "4", there is no bound, there is just GPT-∞, because the AI wouldn't rely on internet knowledge anymore, as it would be able to create its own dataset of ever-growing knowledge, and learn from it, recursively.
For example, suppose you give that hypothetical O(N*log(N)) AI a book on higher topology. Since it is so fast, will instantly "train" or "fine-tune" itself into learning the whole book (training and fine-tuning would become the same thing, and both would be as fast as inference). Then, you can prompt it to create new theorems and proofs about higher topology. And then, you can train it on its own output, quickly... making it smarter. So, it would jump from GPT-4 to GPT-5 level of knowledge in higher topology with little cost. And then 6. And then 10. Soon enough it will have realized all of mathematics can be unified by... teapots. And all that in your laptop. Do you see the problem?
Again, this is no fiction; this is merely a matter of optimization. In theory, the technology to do this today exists, it is just too expensive. If you had 100 quadrillion dollars in your pocket, you could do that. Now, if that cost is out of the equation - and that's what happens when we move from N^2 to N*log(N)... well, it is over. We're one asymptotic breakthrough away from that, and that breakthrough may even have happened already. In fact, it is very likely that Sam and others are sitting on just that, wondering what the hell they do - because they know the open-source community will soon catch up.
Now, imagine the chaos when this kind of technology is widely available? Imagine when anyone can git clone github.com/random_joe/perfect_learner, feed it terabytes of books, and have a GPT-10 at their disposal? Can you see why this is absolutely worrisome? No, this has nothing to do with a rogue AI waking up with consciousness and sending drones. You've watched too many movies. Again, consciousness isn't even on the table. This is about the trivialization of intelligence. This is about a random school shooter or terrorist group having a ELI5 tutorial on how to build a fucking 3D printed nuke on their garage. Or any script kiddie being able to spawn an army of bots that look and act perfectly human-like. Or any variation of that. These are real risks of having this kind of knowledge/power freely available for the widespread population. And, for all we know, we're one open source O(N*log(N))-scaling AI away from that.
So, no, Sam isn't trying to bullshit his way into keeping OpenAI's "monopoly", because, deep inside, he has realized that isn't possible. Very, very soon everyone will have their own GPT-100's, and billionaires like Elon Musk and other people with insider information seem to have realized that, too. So, once you realize that is about to happen, what the fuck do you do? Well, you shout for regulation, because, what else could you possibly do? We'll need very, very strict laws to control this kind of technology, and even that seems absolutely unlikely to be effective.
So, in short, right now we're all living in this "calm before the storm" moment where they know shit is about to hit the fan. You don't know that, but they do. Of course, in the (very unlikely) case LLMs are, for some stupid reason, optimal, and it is impossible to break the quadratic barrier... then, that makes this scenario extremely milder, sure, but it only buys us some time. After all, it would be just a matter of time (10 years, at least!) until compute catches up and some company releases a GPT-5 level AI with open source weights, which would already be very dangerous by itself! And again, that's under the unlikely scenario where there is literally 0 progress in the theoretical side, and LLMs are the best we can do, which is extremely unlikely, because transformers are clearly contrived, over-engineered and sup-optimal. Realistically, given the amount of highly intelligent people working on that, any day now someone could release an open source repository with an AI architecture that learns asymptotically faster, and that's the day everyone is scared to their souls of.
And, finally, it seems like some non-technical people think it is possible to "align" AI. That makes absolutely no fucking sense, and nobody working on the field actually believes that, they're just playing along, ffs. (Sorry, someone had to say it?) Extreme regulation is the only way to possibly keep things safe, if at all. That's because, once we have a O(N*log(N)) architecture, building "safety locks" or "aligned" AI models, in this case, would be as useful as trying to prevent people from hacking your indie game by encrypting its executable. It doesn't work, because, in order to run the game, the user has to decrypt it! This, in turn, allows them to decompile the executable and recover the source. The same principle applies for AIs. If an AI algorithm is so efficient that it can be trained to GPT-4 level performance on a $1k budget... well, then all your "aligning" means shit, because an attacker can just retrain it from scratch, completely bypassing your "alignment". Similarly, any "safeguards" you put in the code can be simply removed when it is open-sourced. D'oh?
tl;dr I hope that helps you understand what is on the table and why these machine learning researchers and CEOs are actually scared. Again, it has nothing to do with some stupid sci-fi terminator demi-god breaking out. It has nothing to do with keeping a monopoly either. It is all about something as powerful as GPT-10 being available for anyone, including very ill and evil people, offline, in a consumer laptop. And we're one algorithm breakthrough away from that! That is scary and would result in an absolutely chaotic world. Just take a moment to realize you'd not even be able to tell what is human on the internet, without physical interaction. Shit is scary. For real.
Hello everyone! SrPeixinho here. What do you think of that scary fanfic my AI just generated? Rate it in the comments! Don't forget to like and subscribe, and follow me on Twitter for some neat PLT research.
Edit: since some people seen to be genuinely confused, yes, this post is meant to be entertaining and exaggerated, and doesn't reflect my actual opinion, but there is no misinformation on it. An architecture that scales in O(N*log(N)) would indeed lead to GPT-4-level AIs running on consumer laptops, but keep in mind that's a huge leap from the current state-of-art, and it would require a massive theoretical breakthrough. While that's technically possible, such breakthrough could be way off. Nobody knows. Also, keep in mind alignment is a serious area of research and many believe this can be achieved, although such optimal architecture would certainly increase the challenge, as, again, cheap training would make it very easy to bypass.